Dramatis Personae

An rpg-sandiego.org Spirit of the Century community game - Adventure awaits, come on in
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devlin1
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Dramatis Personae

Post by devlin1 »

Post your first three character phases here, then go back and update them later with your guest-starring roles.

A Poor Example:

Lord Biff Boffington, Two-Fisted Man of Leisure

Childhood: Biff was born in the lap of luxury to a wealthy industrialist (spats) and the heiress to an egg-cream fortune. He wanted for little in those days, and took to learning the ancient fighting techniques of the Far Southeast to fill his free time as a youth.
Aspects: Silver Spoon, Gator Rassling

War: Biff quickly made a name for himself as an alligator wrestler, and played to sold-out audiences on a European tour -- until the Great War broke out. Suddenly, the Two-Fisted Man of Leisure's skills were put to the test in the theater of conflict. Fighting for the Etente Powers, Biff wrestled one filthy German alligator after another to the ground, trench by trench, across the fields of Ypres. Once he even saved King George V by rassling a 'gator away from him at the last moment, for which he was made a lord and given a monocle.
Aspects: World-Renowned, "This isn't the first time I've wrestled an alligator in a trench"

Novel: Lord Biff Boffington, Two-Fisted Man of Leisure in... Maybe Later!
An army of Sky Pygmies has landed on the front lawn of the White House threatening to poison the world's water supply if they don't receive a king's ransom in platform shoes! Can Biff Boffington get around to stopping them in time, if it isn't too much trouble?
Aspects: Nap Enthusiast, Monocle
Mike Olson
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jimmy corrigan
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Post by jimmy corrigan »

rex p. murphy, alias r.p.m., flyboy engineer extraordinaire

childhood: born rex parnell murphy, jr., r.p.m. comes from a poor black neighborhood in michigan, where his father worked on cars in various garages in town. as a small boy growing up in a particularly rough part of detroit, rex had to learn to stick up for himself when being teased for his eagerness and studious habits. in school he excelled in the sciences and would help his father out in the garage at every opportunity. he had an intuitive understanding of mechanical engineering at an early age, specifically adept at taking things apart, figuring out how they worked, and putting them back together.
aspects:
"go ahead, i can take a hit!"
old betty, trusty monkeywrench

war: at the start of the great war, r.p.m. enlisted in the allied corps of flyboy engineers to work shoulder to shoulder with the best mechanical minds of the allied forces. he spent much of world war i either grease-covered underneath the chassis of a biplane, or in the cockpit testing out his latest innovations. during a bombing run on one of the hangars which housed the experimental planes that he was working on, r.p.m. was able to rescue his engineer colleagues and the plans of project x from the clutches of baron von dread.
aspects:
allied corps of flyboy engineers
"off we go into the wild blue yonder..."

novel: rex murphy in... onward to blue skies!
after several decorations for his valorous actions in the great war, the allied air corps loans r.p.m. the rook (a sopwith pup with his special touches) with the agreement that he continues to help develop experimental planes for use when evil looms again in the unforeseeable future. r.p.m. is forced to foil baron von dread and his minions from their further attempts at destroying rex's projects.
aspects:
special modifications
the rook, wwi sopwith pup plane

guest star 1: rex murphy in... jim-15 vs. the braininator
after installing the latest experimental modification onto the rook, rex flies over the bermuda triangle for a test flight. unbenownst to him, that is where jim-15's arch-nemesis, dr. hurst, a.k.a. the braininator, has his base, cortex island. the rook is downed by dr. hurst's cortex beam and thrown into a room next to jim-15's cell! rex is able to escape with the help of jim-15 and his knowledge of high technology. after the escape the two remain fast friends and contact each other from time to time to talk shop.
aspects:
the rook's weakness: the cortex beam
"i owe you one, jim-15!"

guest star 2: rex murphy in... chesterfield, man from neptune and the silver jackals
on a flight to paris, france to attend a symposium on experimental aviation engineering, rex suddenly finds himself in a dogfight amidst zeppelins and biplanes! in an attempt to rule the world, the silver jackals are in france to try to abscond a hidden neptunian spaceship. rex comes to the aid of chesterfield, man from neptune, who is being attacked. before the spaceship self-destructs and they both fight their way through the fray, rex is inadvertently zapped by a neptunian thought-ray emitted from the craft, which allows him to now speak and comprehend neptunisian.
aspects:
flying ace
"xark gorak m'laxarga xark!" (translation: "hello. i am speaking neptunisian!")
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Uber_snotling
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Post by Uber_snotling »

Brontosaurus Bill, Cowboy Paleontologist

Childhood: Bill was born William Cody Barsbold in Bone Cabin, Wyoming. He was born on one of the most fruitful excavation sites for dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era. His parents were both paleontologists, always on the move looking for more big bones. Bill grew up underfoot on the dig sites in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas. When he wasn't helping his parents with excavation, Bill was busting broncos, and won the Junior National Rodeo Championships three times.
Aspects:
Looking for the next BIG thing
"Yee-haw" (cowboy social skills)

War
Paleontology wasn't in great demand during the great war, but Bill's knowledge of geology and his wild west attitude got him a position in the mining corps looking for deposits of oil and iron. His knack for finding the right spot to dig set him up. It was during these years that he picked up his gambling addiction that has kept him on the move.
Aspects:
"I can help ya find what you're lookin' fer"
Never backs down from a bet

Novel: Brontosaurus Bill in...The Lost Island
After gambling away his money from his service in the mining corps, Bill manages to use his parent's reputation to get a job with the famous paleontologist Dr. Algernon von Gideon on an expedition to the Lost Island in the South Pacific. The expedition is a disaster as the prototype dinosaur mind-control darts brought by von Gideon fail to stun any but the smallest dinosaurs. Only Bill's quick herding of a pack of brontosauri while riding a T. Rex allows a few members to escape. The subsequent press coverage earns him the moniker Brontosaurus Bill.
Aspects
"That ain't BIG e'nuff fer gittin the job done"
Professional Rival: Dr. Algernon von Gideon

Brontosaurus Bill guest starring in Rex Murphy in Onward to Blue Skies
Brontosaurus Bill loses a huge bet to Baron von Dread at the poker table and doesn't have the money to pay off the debt. Baron von Dread uses Brontosaurus Bill to help find the secret hideout of Rex Murphy and the Allied Air Corps. After satisfying his debts to Baron von Dread, Bill switches sides and rides shotgun for Rex on his Sopwith Pup to assuage his guilt in revealing the secret hideout.
Aspects
Always in the hole
"I call shotgun"

Brontosaurus Bill guest starring in Chesterfield Man from Neptune vs. The Silver Jackals
On a digsite in France, Bill finds a strange metal alloy that clearly fell from space. Using his knowledge of impact craters, Bill calculates the trajectory of the metal alloy and tracks down a hidden Neptunisian spaceship. His investigation of the strange ship is rudely interrupted by the Silver Jackals. Bill is captured and strapped to the ship. He manages to chew through his gag and yell out to alert Chesterfield to his presence after Chesterfield had already set the self-destruct button on his spaceship. Chesterfield escorts him to safety. Bill and Chesterfield become an odd couple of friends.
Aspects
Unexpected discovery
Perfect Strangers

Skills
Survival
Science Investigation
Guns Athletics Gambling
Art Resolve Might Alertness
Fists Endurance Rapport Empathy Academics

Stunts
Ride Anything (Survival)
Breaking It In (Survival)
Scientific Genius (Paleontology)
Quick Eye (Investigation)
Gambling Man (Gambling)
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Cthulhu
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Post by Cthulhu »

Jim-15: Man from the Future!

Childhood: Jim, like all the other R-series clones is a manual labor and maintenance worker born on January first 2001. Like most boys his age, he spent he eight days of childhood with the learn-o-lux, and hanging out in the cafeteria eating meal pills. Because the Jim series exhibited an unfortunate creativity proclivity, they were given the most mind numbing and simple jobs, cleaning and repairing the technology that kept the great-floating cities working. Jim-15 spent his spare time reading historical books(his favorite) and learning everything he could about the machines in his care.


Aspects: Advanced, but incomplete education. Sheltered upbringing.


War: When the Pod-beasts from Jupiter defeated the Rocket Navy and invaded earth, Jim-15 was one of the few lucky enough to live in Earth's last surviving city. With so few clones in service, he was tasked with many other tasks, repairing death-rays, maintaining jet packs, shining the killer robots. He was laser-mopping around one of the big new temporal distorters that the citizens were using to escape to the far future. It was then that the last city came under fire. With no-where else to go, Jim turned on the time distorter. With limited understanding of the machine, he was flung nearly 100 years into the past. With only his toolkit, a few insta-pills, and a spiffy jumpsuit, Jim had to begin again in this strange primitive world.


Aspects: Man From The Future! “My toolkit, it's all I have left.”


Novel: Jim-15 vs. The Braininator
Jim's arrival in 20th century earth went unnoticed by most. Most people saw him as an oddly dressed and eccentric scientist. Jim set up shop as a repairman and inventor and did good business. But the Braininator, the disembodied brain of Dr. Clive Husrt read his mind, and discovered Jim was his key to advanced technology. Jim was kidnapped by Hurst's clockwork ninja and taken to Cortex island. Jim used is advanced, but incomplete knowledge of high technology to make his daring escape. In the end Cortex island sank into the sea, but Braininator survived, and swears Jim will pay! The Braininator begins rebuilding again with technological knowledge stolen from Jim, on Jupiter.


Aspects: Enemy: Braininator , “This knowledge must be guarded until they are ready”
No Nyarlathotep, No Chaos
Know Nyarlathotep, Know Chaos
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Sadohara
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Post by Sadohara »

Judge Ward

Childhood: Born in a New Orleans brothel to a Franco-American prostitute, Elton Huard’s early life was beyond miserable. After the death of his mother, Esme, and several years fostered by her co-workers, he was eventually tossed to the curb at the age of seven, after being discovered by the brothel owners, Jock and Anton Darnelle. Using only his wits, not inconsiderable charm, and occasionally, his fists, Huard climbed from the gutters of the meanest city on the Ole Mississip’ into the cream of Southern society. To his credit, he never forgot those he left behind and aids the Crescent City’s underclasses as best he can.

Aspects
  • The Art of the Con
  • Robin Hood Complex
The War: By 1914, Huard had conned, bullied, and bribed his way to a respectable judgeship in the parish of Orleans despite his lack of any formal legal training and changed his name to Ward. Originally intending to use his high office for his own personal benefit, the Judge found himself drawn more and more to the principles of justice, the defense of the downtrodden, and the persecution of the corrupt. Judge Ward’s wise and insightful decisions garnered the respect of fellow lawmakers, local hoods, and the common man alike.

Aspects
  • “Don’ lie to me, son. Lyin’ don’ do nobody no good.”
  • A Damn Good Solution
Novel: Judge Ward Begs to Differ!
During the late years of the War, the New Orleans underworld came under the shadowy influence of the powerful German banker, Josef Hotzendorff, and his French-turncoat attorney-assassin, La Vipere. Together with a disgraced local prizefighter, Henri du Fer, they brutally took control of the brothels (legal and illegal), casinos, and the dock fighting circuit. Their plans? To introduce a deadly strain of syphilis onto the nearby army bases to hinder American intervention and to create huge numbers of morphine and opium addicts across the South to disrupt the supply to morphine to the troops on the Front.

Judge Ward fought their efforts to further corrupt his great city – first from the bench, then on the streets of his youth. Aided by Police Captain Girardino’s uncorruptable Baby Blues, and The Tchoupitoulas Boys, the only free syndicate left in the city, and his own mighty cypresswood gavel, PJ, Judge Ward broke their death grip on the New Orleans underworld and averted their contemptible schemes.

Aspects
  • “I ain’ afraid of gettin’ my hainds dirty.”
  • Pacis per Justicia or “Ole PJ”, an oversized gavel made of the aged black cypress wood from the last swamps of St. Bernard’s Parish – a gift from the voodoo priestess Madam St. Croix to remind him in New Orleans, hard truths often need to be hammered in.
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Post by SpaceMonkey »

Flannan "Gentleman Dan" Kilvain - Cursed Irish-American Pugilist


Childhood:


Born and raised in the mean streets of New York, Gentleman Dan's parents must've had prophetic leanings, as his given name of Flannan means Blood-Red in their native tongue - and he's seen plenty of that in his time. Whether true prognosticators or not he never discovered - for they left him as a babe in a local orphanage, which he liberated himself from at the first opportunity. By the time he was twelve Dan was a regular street urchin. Living however he could, whether by stealing, begging, or even honest jobs Dan got a firsthand seat at the grand college of experience - and quite a student he was. He soon earned a reputation for knowing how to get things done, even at his young age. He also had a certain charm about him that garnered friends and favors easily - a talent that he used to his own advantage to make friends and contacts wherever he went.

His true name Flannan was shortened somewhere along the line to Flan, and from there to Dan due to a drunken misunderstanding. He kept the moniker, as he liked it - and 'certain troubles' with the local authorities made him think a less noticeable name might suit him better in the long run...

Aspects:
"If a man's got a job, he has to get it done. Integrity and whatnot."
"Who you talk to sure, but oftentimes it's How you do your talkin' that matters."
..Or shorter as Integrity and Whatnot and How you do your Talkin'



The War:

Dan lied about his age and enlisted very early in the army - just after losing a childhood friend to the Black Tom explosion in the summer of '16. Since he had joined so early, and before the country was officially engaged in the war, Dan spent some time after Basic without much to do. He eventually filled this lull by joining an 'unofficially sanctioned' army bareknuckle boxing league, where he learned the fine art of pugilism - and found that he was a damn fine fighter. He continued fighting and training as war broke out in earnest and he was shipped overseas to the trenches, and dreamed of one day making it big on the professional circuit back home.

A (mostly) good soldier when the time came, Dan was nevertheless quite a hellraiser when on leave. After one such occasion he awoke in the middle of the night after passing out in a copse of trees adjoining a park and some woodlands. Hearing voices, he soon discovered a nearby gypsy encampment. Having heard tales of their wild ways, he decided to continue his evening's festivities with them, but soon the overheard conversation changed his mind. These gypsies, looking for a quick profit, had apparently decided to throw in with an Austrian Spy and were planning to blow up a nearby British Naval munitions dump. With some quick thinking and some help from his nearby friends (and no time to muster the troops) Dan was able to thwart them. He got a medal for it, and the Austrian as well as most of the Gypsies were executed as war criminals. That would have been the end of it, but the surviving family members of the gypsy troupe had other ideas, and a grudge to settle. They placed a powerful curse on Dan the night of the next new moon, and his life has never been the same. Seemingly random bad luck now follows him, but even worse is the true nature of the hex: that he will never see his dreams come to fruition, not till he can rid himself of the evil hanging over him. Still, the adversity he has faced since has solidified his already strong will. With every crushing boxing defeat (he hasn't won a sanctioned match since that day, though his sparring and brawling always goes fine), every failed attempt at love, every major life setback Dan's resolve gets stronger.

Aspects:
Gypsy Curse
"I may be down, but you'll not be puttin' me out!"



Novel: Gentleman Dan and the Crown Jewels


After returning to England to search for clues on how to remove his Gypsy Curse, Gentleman Dan is embroiled in a plot to replace the nation's crown jewels with fakes built by the notorious Baron Oswald von Coppenhein in a dastardly plot to control the royal minds, disband Parliament, and take over leadership of Britain for himself! Dan is joined by some old and some new friends as he struggles to thwart the Baron's evil plans, stop a Jack-The-Ripper fanatic who wants the Crown Jewels for his own plans, find the gypsies that cursed him, figure out some way to win his exhibition match against England's own Bulldog Bill the 'Pulverizer of Prince Street', and more!

* See the grateful queen herself award Dan with the ironic appellation of 'Gentleman'!
* Thrill to adventure as Gentleman Dan closes in on the Baron!
* With special appearances by [ultra-cool hero] and [awesome guy]!
* Witness as our hero's indomitable spirit during ringside defeat earns him more admirers than he can shake a jewelled sceptre at! He may lose every match folks, but it's one hell of a show as his opponent has to take victory inch by inch! He's the hero of downtrodden working men everywhere!
* Buy now - more adventure than an old dime ever bought you before!

Aspects:
Nemesis: Baron Oswald von Coppenhein, evil political mastermind
"Hey, ain't that Gentleman Dan, the boxer?"
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Post by devlin1 »

Incognito, The Million-Masked Man!

(Including Skills and Stunts here as well.)

Superb: Deceit
Great: Resolve, Empathy
Good: Art, Rapport, Alertness
Fair: Fists, Guns, Endurance, Stealth
Average: Sleight of Hand, Academics, Investigation, Resources, Athletics

Stunts:
Linguist
Clever Disguise
Mimicry
Master of Disguise
Disguise of the Mind


Childhood:
The origins of Incognito are, appropriately enough, as shrouded in mystery as the man himself. There are indications that his father was none other than renowned vaudevillian performer Falstaf St. James, generally considered one of the finest actors of the stage. St. James, of course, was known in equal measure for his uncanny ability to immerse himself in a role and for the tragic death of his young wife and frequent co-star Portland, whose untimely demise in 1903 is widely attributed to hypertension. Though no official record exists of the couple's offspring, if they did indeed have a son, he could easily have been the child performer who began appearing on St. James's playbills as early as 1908. Once again, however, identification is a problem; for whatever reason, unless the troupe had a rotating roster of child actors -- unlikely, given St. James's famed fastidiousness and disdain for children -- the boy is listed variously as Edwin E. Clive, Hobart van Zandt, Li'l Stinker, Ray Wollbrinck, Freddie Fischbach, and several other names. One can only guess at the worldly education he must have obtained with a proscenium arch for a schoolhouse and vaudevillians for schoolmarms.
Aspects: Uncertain Origins; Jack of All Trades

The War:
Did Incognito play a role in the Great War? It seems possible, though he would have been no more than 16 at the time. His actions may not at first be obvious to the casual observer, and certainly few historians would agree, but a careful examination of historical documents reveals an interesting pattern. The British military credit a spy called Lt. T. St. George-Fuller with providing key information that led to the initial success at the Battle of Cambrai, only to report St. George-Fuller missing in action two days later. At the Battle of Cantigny, American Major-General Robert Lee Bullard records receiving critical intelligence on the German Eighteenth Army from a young recruit named Matthew Juan, despite not having a soldier by that name on the rosters of any of Bullard's units. Shortly thereafter, a French-Canadian spy calling himself Hubert Vines fed Canadian commander Sir Arthur Currie a steady stream of information at the Battle of Amiens; Currie claimed the Allies' seven-mile advance that day would not have been possible without Vines, but notes in his journal that he was "saddened by the apparent loss of the lad who did not report back after the battle, nor was found among the dead or wounded."
Aspects: Seasoned Spy; Barely Made It Out Alive

Novel: Incognito in... The Face of Fear!
What unknown power kidnaps able men from their comfortable lives only to return them as glassy-eyed automatons bent to a sinister will? What is the meaning of the crimson vulture tattooed on the backs of their necks? And what is their chilling goal? What dangers does the gleaming zeppelin floating high over New York City portend? How can this army of innocents be defeated when each is a fellow American? Only the Million-Masked Man can infiltrate the ranks of these unwilling traitors, confront their tormentor, and save the nation! An entirely new kind of crime-fighter in an entirely new kind of thrilling novel -- one in which the reader guesses at the identity of both the villain and the hero! Who is the Crimson Vulture? And who is... Incognito?
Aspects: The Million-Masked Man; Powerful Enemies

Guest Star: Gentleman Dan and the Crown Jewels
Unbeknownst to Gentleman Dan, Baron Oswald von Coppenhein cooks up an insidious plan to kidnap that Bantam Brawler of Britain and thus clear the way for his evil usurpation of the throne of Great Britain. Acting under cover of night, the baleful Baron's plans go off without a hitch -- until the man he thought was Gentleman Dan tosses aside his ingenious disguise to reveal himself as none other than Incognito, the Million-Masked Man! Before the dastardly villain and his henchmen can recover from their shock, Incognito surprises them once more with an assault as ferocious and unrelenting as a champion pugilist! With the Baron defeated, the Crown Jewels are safe -- for the time being. And all with Gentleman Dan none the wiser....
Aspects: Behind The Scenes; Surprise!

Guest Star: Devil's Dues
Johnny Mephistopheles finds an unlikely ally among The 666 in the form of a rogue member whose connections all but guarantee the Son of Satan's acceptance into the cult. Later, when Johnny discovers the cultists holding Senator Cogburn prisoner in the Capitol Building, he's pleasantly surprised to find that the statesman can hold his own in a fight, and together the two take on a roomful of enemies back-to-back using only muscle and -- in Johnny's case -- magic.
Aspects: Everywhere At Once; Powerful Friends
Mike Olson
‎"In this economy, it's not easy to feed a growing family. So we eat Haunkkah gelt for dinner and look at a picture of broccoli." --Paul F. Tompkins
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entrope
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Akros the Magnificent

Post by entrope »

Akros the Magnificent
An acrobatic midget that fighter for the common man

Childhood:
Born in Bulgaria in a traveling circus. The love child of Tin-Kan the Goat Man and Gerttie the Bearded Woman. Born in mid-air during a trapeze act staring his mother. Whether by luck or fate, baby Akros was caught by Gerttie's trapeze partner instead of Gerttie and Gerttie fell to her death. Akros survived though. He was viewed as a bad omen by the rest of the circus and blamed for the death of his mother. They still took care of him, but no one would have anything to do with him other than provide him minimal nourishment. We was weaned on rat milk and then moved to garbage when he got older. One thing they did notice about Akros is that he stopped growing by the time he was 2 years old. Some say it was the rat milk that stunted his growth, but most said it was proof he was cursed. The other thing everyone noticed was that Akros was amazingly nimble and acrobatic and had an amazing sense of balance. Though the other kids in the circus would always try to trip or ambush Akros, they were never able to make him fall or catch him off guard. Some say that it was being born in mid-air that gave him these abilities, but again most people just again blamed his curse.
At the age of 5 Akros left the circus to strike out on his own.

Aspects:
1) stunted growth
2) amazing agility and balance

War:
Akros eventually fell in with a traveling gypsy performance troupe. For the first time, he found some acceptance and some friendship. It was here that he met Quantos the Quixotic who befriended him and showed him how to defend himself using various objects available around the circus. Quantos developed an act with Akros involving aerial stunts and mock battles with objects brought in by the audience. This act became a big hit and earned Akros the stage name "Akros the Magnificent".
Quantos developed such a deep friendship with Akros that he started to teach him the mystical powers of levitation which had been passed down along his family for generations. Unfortunately Quantos died in a freak butter churning accident before he could fully pass on his knowledge.

Aspects:
1) improvised weapons
2) "iffy" levitation powers

Novel:
Akros the Magnificent in -- Smoking Chimps of Furry!
In this adventure Akros the Magnificent teams up with Lister (a an irrate chain-smoking circus monkey) to defeat the evil land baron, Snooty La Fez. Snooty La Fez has been putting the squeeze on the fine citizens of Pleasant Village. Lister's owner Hanz Bruber is found by Akros uncounsious in the street with one foot in the grave from starvation. Together Akros and Lister serve Snotty La Fez a heaping helping of his just deserts!

Aspects:
1) irrate, chain-smoking circus monkey companion
2) "I don't just fight for the litle man, I am the little man!"
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Post by mordraine »

Johnny Mephistopheles, Son of Satan

Childhood
Johnny lived a sheltered childhood on the secluded upstate New York estate of his mother Estelle. Estelle never told Johnny anything about his father and as a result, the boy was largely ignorant of his unique pedigree.

His childhood years were mostly uneventful. However, there was a room at the mansion, The Room at the End of the Hall, that he was under no circumstances allowed to enter. He was torturously curious about the room, but was also afraid of his mother enough so that he never pushed his luck. That is, until his 13th birthday. On that fateful day, Johnny snuck up to The Room at the End of the Hall, opened the door quickly, and stepped inside.

Immediately he felt himself falling. He was surrounded by a Black Nothingness. The fall seemed to last an eternity, until finally he landed on a hard surface. He looked around him, and as far as the eye could see was fire, and the air stank of brimstone. Before he could even gather himself to scream, a shadowy figure emerged from the flames. It was a tall, dark complected man with a top hat and tails. His features slowly came out of shadow and Johnny saw that the moustachioed and goateed face was smiling down at him.

"You're early, son," said the man. "But I suppose there's nothing for it. Come with me then, and I'll show you around."

Aspects:
"You heard me right. My father is The Devil."
Been to Hell and Back

The War
At the tender age of 16, Johnny's father felt it wise to expose his son to the world, and as such, deposited him right in the middle of an intense trench battle between the French and the Germans, and left him to fend for himself. The only thing he gave him was a strange amber amulet carved with a pentacle. Johnny had mere moments to dodge and weave through the fight, as shells exploded around him and bullets whizzed by his head. Miraculously, he made it to the the French trenches with only a few scrapes and bruises. He spent the next year and a 1/2 struggling to make it back home to upstate New York, dodging both German bullets and French conscriptors. The amulet, it turned out, is a formidable weapon and helped him escape from numerous tight spots.

This experience, rather than endearing him to his father, turned him against his father. Equal parts resentment and rebellion caused Johnny to realize he should resist his father the devil, by fighting evil everywhere.

Aspects:
Lucifer's Amulet
"I must fight Evil everywhere!"

Novel
Johnny Mephistopheles, Son of Satan in... Devil's Dues.

Johnny fights his way through a cult of crazy Satanists called The 666, who attempt to open an astral gate straight to hell, inside the Capitol Building in Washington DC. Using his skills of deception and trickery, Johnny infiltrates the cult and brings them down from the inside. Damien Darkover, head of the 666, is defeated and driven away. In the process, it is revealed who Johnny's dad is, and the rest of the cult follow him now. Johnny finds himself the unwilling head of a cult of satanists.

Aspects:
Crazy Cult of Satanists
Tricky devil

Guest Star 1 - Johnny appears in "Smoking Chimps of Fury!"
Johnny shows up in Pleasant Village, hot on the trail of Damien Darkover, ex-head of The 666 (now a Bible salesman). As it turns out, Damien is in cahoots with Snooty La Fez. Akros helps Johnny to corner Damien in the office of the Police Chief of Pleasant Village. Damien and Snooty both had the Police Chief hypnotized to do their bidding. Damien gets away by throwing a Bible at Johnny, but not before Akros and Johnny break his hold on the chief.

Aspects:
Nemesis - Damien Darkover
Vulnerable to Holy Symbols

Guest Star 2 - Johnny appears in "The Face of Fear!"
Johnny helps Incognito determine the identity of the Crimson Vulture, all while never even knowing that he's working with Incognito. As it turns out, the Crimson Vulture is Vladimir Stolinov, an obsessed Russian with delusions of grandeur. Johnny sees Crimson Vulture's deepest darkest secrets, and uses that knowledge to drive him back to Russia, a beaten and whipped man.

Aspects:
"You don't always want to be around me."
Sees into Men's Souls

Skills
Superb - Mysteries
Great - Deceit, Leadership
Good - Empathy, Athletics, Sleight of Hand
Fair - Survival, Resolve, Intimidation, Alertness
Average - Guns, Fists, Stealth, Endurance, Burglary

Stunts -
Lucifer's Amulet (Personal Artifact)
Minions
Reinforcements
The Honest Lie
Heart's Secret
Hey man, I'm slinging volume and fat stacking benjies, you know what I mean? I can't be all about spelling and shit!
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Scolopendra
One-Armed Skeleton
Posts: 85
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:36 pm
Location: Spring Valley
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Okay, I got one working.

Post by Scolopendra »

Magnus Hesche, Ninja Envoy to New Worlds

Childhood:

Born in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, Magnus' first memories of childhood bring him back to the Oscar II Institut för Människaförbättring och Kollektivuppehälle, a wonderful sort of creche kindergarten where he could grow up with the relatively intelligent discourse of people just as beautiful and smart of himself. The key word is 'relatively'--discussing the philosophical implications of finger paint as opposed to crayons, learning about the superiority of the Swedish people and empire, the improving power of science and how things were so much better here than the rest of the world with its backwardness and superstition--with patient direction from Överbarnkammareledare Greta Ledarblandning, a student of Freudian theory and therefore deathfully afraid of anal expletives. Perhaps she wasn't the best choice for a creche leader, as she died due to a case of psychosomatic E. coli poisoning when Magnus was ten. With his mother figure dead and his father figure, like everyone else, being the Great Imperial Warlord Oscar II who they had only seen in heroic paintings of slaying dragons and whatnot, Magnus became sullen, ignoring the advanced education offered... except for geography. Calculus and orbital mechanics be damned, there was a world out there, a world he desperately wanted to see...

Aspects:
Don't Know Much 'Bout Chem-is-try (or higher math, or biology, or...)
Wanderlust

The War
Sweden was neutral in the Great War, and in the Institut it simply became another background on how backwards the world was. Stirred by nationalistic fervor to heal the world and bring it into the scientific understanding of the Konungariket Sverige--and desperately needing to escape what he felt was the binding enclosure of the prison-like Institut compount--he got into a conversation with a guard about poetry, started waxing eloquent about a fire alarm handle, got the guard to really concentrate on the greater meaning of the fire alarm as a metaphor for alerting the people to world change, then hit him on the nape of the neck with a sock full of quarter-krona pieces he'd scavanged from all the couches of the Institut.

Escaping by stealing one of many German U-boats that had run aground on the shores of Sweden, he made his way to Britain. Immediately mistaken for a German defector, the King of England knighted him and immediately gave him a commission in the Royal Navy aboard the battlecruiser HMS Invincible, just in time for the Battle of Jutland--the Crown needed a disposable hero for King and Country to explain how even those damn Swedes (kin to the Hun, you know) could see the virtue and value in fighting for jolly old England and Empire.

Jutland was not kind to HMS Invincible, and so Magnus simply had to swim through oil-slick waters to the beaches of Denmark. Arriving exhausted on neutral territory as a combatant of the Great War, the authorities first put him into a prison camp... then decided that he could be useful. Inducting him into the Danish Ufordærvet Tjenester, they smuggled him out in yet another captured submarine to China to protect Danish interests in the nascent Republic of China.

Of course, not like that went as planned at all. The populist-aligned 委员会为外国干预的铲除 (roughly translating to "Council for the Eradication of Foreign Intervention") already had intelligence from a mole in the Ufordærvet Tjenester that the Danes were looking for a piece of the Chinese Pie, intercepted Magnus, and--upon discovering his Swedishness--held him prisoner in a nascent thought-reform school in the mountains along the border with Nepal where he would be trained in the art of stealth and the ninja ("We invented it, not the Japanese!"). While the brainwashing took its ideological toll, he still mostly tuned out of the ninja parlor tricks and, not for the first time, dreamed of escape...

Aspects:
"Hey, look over there..." *THWACK*
Polyglot With An Accent

Novel
Magnus Hesche, Swedish Ninja in... Sändebud till nya världar ("Envoy to New Worlds")


Brainwashed into taking the fight of Nationalist China to the Europeans who had divvied her up like a gang of lowlifes too cheap to pay for separate concubines, Hesche returns via submarine to Sweden. Infiltrating his hometown of Örnsköldsvik in the dead of night, he discovers the key to his past and his future:

A secret space race between the world powers, with China in the lead. The importance of winning over the Martian Coordinate to determine Earth's first great power in space. Why do the Martians not understand their own technology? Why does Coordinator Lokpithwee-45 eschew the common algae pills all Martians delight in eating, and from whence came his slightly deformed back? All this and more will be exploded by Magnus Hesche in... Sändebud till nya världar!

Aspects:
Nemesis - Martian Coordinator Lokpithwee-45 and hence most of the Martian military-industrial complex
"It's a... gizmo." "Vee hav dose een Sveeden..." (cultural superiority complex)

Guest Star #1: Magnus appears in Jim-15 vs. The Braininator

Having just got back to the headquarters of the Diplomatiskårsvenskutrymmekungarike, Magnus is immediately dispatched back out to try and obtain secrets from the Cortex Trust, which could be a front organization for the United States Space Department. Mind-read and captured like Jim-15, he breaks out with him and R.P.M. but discovers that the Braininator's rocket technology comes from... Mars! Could this be proof that the Martians are trying to influence Earthling politics like Earth is trying to influence Mars? Seeing the work of Lokpithwee, Magnus stays behind while his comrades fly away, steeling himself to the need to destroy the island by setting its phlogistonic reactor to self distruct and prevent Martian inroads on Earth before it's too late.

The mountain explodes and the island sinks while Jim-15 and R.P.M. fly away...

Aspects:
Nose for Conspiracy
"Ooo, dis lieuks ixploosive..."

Guest Star #2: Magnus appears in Devil's Dues

No, folks, he's not dead, but now he doesn't particularly like smoking. To get back to his beloved Sweden, Magnus first has to cross the US of A, and he gets to the East Coast just when weird things start happening in Washington, D.C.. Convinced that it must be the work of Martians again trying to influence Earth via the New World, he teams up with Johnny Mephistopheles. Pretending to be a Swedish diplomat (which he sort of is), he finds clues that lead Johnny to 666 and Damien Darkover. Not believing in demons and hellspawn and whatnot, he leaves Johnny to do his thing. The two become friends, even if their worldviews never see eye to eye, and Magnus feels sorry that his new friend is now in charge of a bunch of people clearly brainwashed by alien mind-control.

Aspects:
"Oh, dat's joost a fayrie tale..." (total disbelief in Mystery in favor of Science!)
Cigarette Abolitionist ("Dose dings are deengeroos!")

* - * - *

Skills:
Superb: Resolve
Great: Endurance, Athletics
Good: Alertness, Academics*, Rapport
Fair: Deceit, Drive, Guns, Fists
Average: Pilot, Stealth, Art, Leadership, Weapons

Stunts:
International
Last Leg
Inner Strength
Smooth Recovery
Death Defiance

* Language trapping of Academics: Swedish, English, Danish, Cantonese
Just in case anyone wants to watch me run something.

I'll have you know I've been doing this since I was six.
Proud user of the "Are you sure you want to do that?" Clueless Player Warning System.
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Skyman
Proud Regent
Posts: 8026
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2003 3:00 am
Location: North Park
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Post by Skyman »

Damien Jar-Legend of the Soul Collector


Childhood- Born, Matty MacDennon, in the small-predominately Irish Catholic-town of South Ipswich, New England. His mother was not married and had to leave the town to work in at the mills to hide the fact she was pregnant at age 13. Matty never knew his father but folks speculate it might have been a seminary student that had stayed at the church for a month.

Matty grew up fatherless, fairly poor and was often beat up in school by the rich kids known as the ‘Letters’-Since the kids would address each other by their first letters in their first and last name…Like LJ, AJ and DJ. In middle school,

Matty befriended one of the bullies, named DJ, after finding him severely beaten by his father at the door steps of the Church of our Holy Mother. DJ would stay overnight at Matty’s when things got bad and DJ would invite him to play at the Mansion during the good times. When Matty’s mother died of consumption (which coincides with DJ’s father being hit by lightning while playing golf), Matty was adopted by DJ’s family. Soon after the ‘Letters’ stopped picking on him and the group of boy’s realized that they should not abuse the underprivileged but help them after getting to know Matty. Together they (the Letters) formed a bond that got them through school, college (Univ. of Pennsylvania) and the Great War.

Aspects:
1) True to his friends
2) ‘Everybody’s got an opinion, which you can call determinism…but my blatant disregard for it is called free will!”- Underdog mentality




War:
Matty was hit with polio a year before the war and was stricken to a wheel chair, which made him unable to go. DJ went off to lead a platoon of marines into France but came back a ghost of his former self.

Doctors called it Shell Shock but Matty knew different…something was missing. Matty got the ‘Letters’ together and searched for a cure at the end of the war. The ‘Letters’ tried nontraditional methods -not accepted in the USA- after several attempts with conventional medical practices failed.

A shaman from Cuba, named Hector Diego Montojo, was living in Florida as a refugee from the Spanish American War. Stories had been spread that Hector was able to cure those that had been afflicted from the shell shock of the war. ‘The Letters’ met with Hector and was told that DJ suffered from an illness called Susto, which means the soul has separated from the body as a result of fright. Hector added that DJ’s soul was too far for him to retrieve and was in a state called espanto or empty body. Disheartened by the news Matty and the ‘Letters’ walked out.

Then Boom!

A bomb went off in Hectors residence. Matty and the ‘Letters’ went back in to save Hector but found him barely alive. As they drove him to the hospital Hector started to ramble on about how DJ’s soul was captured by the Walpurgis Knights Conspiracy and that he was going to be eaten by the horrible Gods of the Infinite Vast if it could not be retrieved. In his last breath, Hector leaned over to Matty and blew his magic into his soul.

Aspects:
1) Hunted by the Gods
2) ‘I feel something is missing here’...Soul collecting




Novel:Damien Jar in…Legendary Soul Collector against the Gods.

The ‘Letters’ are slowly being picked off one by one by a mysterious illuminati set out to feed souls to a blasphemous set of Gods. When Matty is attacked by the Walpurgis Knights Conspiracy he discovers that he has the ability to rescue souls and is forced to transfer his own spiritual essence into the soulless body of his friend Damien Jar (DJ) after he is mortally wounded in his wheel chair by a deadly bolo thrown at him.

Now as Damien Jar, he escapes and sets out to find his friends souls which brings him face to face with rich evil industrialist/war monger Jack Katkali. As Damien is captured, and brought forward to the secret chambers of the horrible Gods of the Infinite Vast, he comes in contact of the souls captured. Katkali gloats over Damien Jar and explains how the powerful 15 men of the Walpurgis Knights Conspiracy develop wars across the world for Centuries to steal souls left fragile from the horrors of war. How the 15 have been granted immortality for feeding the God’s! He mentions that the Great War is a prelude to a larger one ten or more years in the making.

As the madman gloats, Damien transfers the stolen souls back into his body and uses the sum power of each spirit to break free and over power the cultist. The Secret Chamber is destroyed and Jack Katkali is killed when a statue of a God falls upon him. Damien uses his powers to take his soul and feed it to one of the Gods for revenge. Victory is bittersweet when Damien finds out that the souls of ‘Letters’ were not there, except Damiens, and are held by the other 14 members of Walpurgis Knights Conspiracy.

Damien is able to return most of the souls back to their bodies but currently has the souls of Matty’s, Damiens and a Heavy drinking Cabaret Singer named Jessica Kegel whose body could not be located. Damien is hellbent to stop the Walpurgis Knights Conspiracy and save the souls of his friends the ‘Letters.’

Aspects:
1) Has the sum power of the souls
2) Multiple Personalities
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