[hider=Ripper Jack Buchannan, Wanderer]
[hr][hr][h1][b][i][color=DAA520][center]Robert 'Ripper Jack' Buchannan[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h1]
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Jaomnks.jpg[/img][/center]
[hr][hr][h3][b][i][color=DAA520][center]Character Summary[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h3]
[b][color=DAA520]Name:[/color][/b]Robert Elliot Buchannan
[b][color=DAA520]Aliases:[/color][/b]Ripper Jack
[b][color=DAA520]Age:[/color][/b] 48
[b][color=DAA520]Nationality:[/color][/b]Australian
[b][color=DAA520]Ethnicity:[/color][/b] White
[b][color=DAA520]Current Residence:[/color][/b] Wanderer
[b][color=DAA520]Gender:[/color][/b] Male
[b][color=DAA520]Education:[/color][/b] Spotty
[b][color=DAA520]Job:[/color][/b] Jack of All Trades
[b][color=DAA520]Role:[/color][/b]Muscle/Transport

[hr][hr][h3][b][i][color=DAA520][center]Appearance[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h3]
[b][color=DAA520]Height:[/color][/b] 5'11''
[b][color=DAA520]Weight:[/color][/b] 190 lb
[b][color=DAA520]Build:[/color][/b] Wiry 
[b][color=DAA520]Eyes:[/color][/b] Blue
[b][color=DAA520]Hair:[/color][/b] Brown
[b][color=DAA520]Skin Tone:[/color][/b] Tanned 
[b][color=DAA520]Tattoos/Scars/Piercings:[/color][/b] Numerous shrapnel and bullet scars.
[b][color=DAA520]Personal Style:[/color][/b] 
Jack is a pragmatic old bushman. He dresses in practical clothing for outdoor work, usually in a combination of khakis and leather all weather gear. He habitually carries a swag with a wide variety of gear and equipment. He is seldom seen without a battered slouch hat with one side pinned up in Australian military fashion. The fashion of his dress makes him appear uncouth in formal society and all efforts to clean him up have thus far failed.


[hr][hr][h3][b][i][color=DAA520][center]Psychology[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h3]
[i][color=DAA520][center]Steady* Larakin* Tough* Heart of Gold[/center][/color][/i]

[b][color=DAA520]Sexuality:[/color][/b] Heterosexual
[b][color=DAA520]Relationship Status:[/color][/b] Widowed
[b][color=DAA520]Personality:[/color][/b] 
Jack is a rough and tumble bushman who grew up in the harsh wilderness of northern Australia. He comes from a tradition of rugged self reliance and practicality. He grew up droving and shearing and has imbibed the tradition of telling stories and tall tales. The sobriquet Ripper Jack actually derives from his fondness for telling stories, many of which are rooted in his own experience. Stricken with wanderlust from an early age he is restless by nature. While he is patient with a given task he is always eager to be on to the next one.

In his relationships with others he is no nonsense and can be a little standoffish at first. Once he gets to know someone however he is quite gregarious and extremely loyal.

[b][color=DAA520]Habits:[/color][/b] 
Smoking
Waking early to check the weather
[b][color=DAA520]Hobbies:[/color][/b] 
Whittles wood
[b][color=DAA520]Fears:[/color][/b] 3 real fears that make your character unhinged
[list]
[*] Aging - Jack is afraid he isn’t getting any younger
[*] Failure
[*] Disease
[*] Fire - All pilots have an atavistic fear of burning alive.
[/list]
[b][color=DAA520]Likes:[/color][/b] 
[list]
[*] The Sea
[*] Adventure
[*] Whiskey
[*] Telling Stories
[*] Flying
[/list]
[b][color=DAA520]Dislikes:[/color][/b] 3 minimal
[list]
[*] Brits - Enough said.
[*] Causes and Idealists - Big ideas get good people killed by the thousands.
[*] The unexplained - In his line of work, what you don't know is probably a Russian Sniper.
[/list]

[hr][hr][h3][b][i][color=DAA520][center]History[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h3]
[b][color=DAA520]A Memory:[/color][/b]

“What did you just say to me?” the voice boomed in the confines of the club. The french lounge singer tried valiantly to keep up the tune but the faltering pianist rendered it an impossible task. The Chanson de la Lune was packed with soldiers, it always was, every man in the mud dreamed of getting away from the line for a few days to find forgetfulness in booze and companionship.

“I said you are a liar sar!” a high pitched English accent shrilled. The source of the disturbance were a group of six men playing cards around a table. All of them wore khaki uniforms, three were British, and two were Australian and the fifth man a canadian. The larger and older of the two Australians had shot to his feet, knocking his chair over in his haste, and now leaned forward on his knuckles. He was in his mid thirties with features that seemed chiseled from granite and covered with the well tanned leather of the tropic sun. His uniform was disheveled and mismatched, RFC insignia pinned nonchalantly to the breast of his jacket.

“Steady Jack,” the seated Australian implored eyes glancing around the mass of suddenly interested British and French officers.

“You dare call me a liar you poxy pommey bastard?! We were fighting the Boer while you were cowering in Pretoria!”

“Listen you damn colonial, my father was at Mafaking …”

“Mafaking!” sneered the big Australian, “Doing what? Hiding in a hole like the rest of you?”

The lounge exploded into chaos at the not so subtle accusation of cowardice. The brit shot to his feet and swinging a fist at the big Australian. Jack swatted the blow away and responded with a roundhouse blow that sent the brit sprawling across the table. A half dozen men charged to the defence of their countrymen fists cocked. Jack grabbed the edge of the heavy table muscles bunching as he lifted the card table and hurling it into the oncoming ruck of men, scattering them like ten pins. A bottle bounced of the side of his head with an unmusical thunk. Jack staggered back with a vicious oath before spinning to catch his new assailant by the shirt front. The musached officer had a moment to yell in shock before Jack dropped him with a vicious head butt that was audible even over the tulmult.  A chair crashed across his back as one of the brits hit him from behind. Roaring in pain and rage he spun about and drove his fist into the man's jaw, sending him tumbling glassy eyed to the floor.

“Come on ya bastards, one at a time or all at once!”

Jack stood amidst the ruins of the The Chanson de la Lune. Unconscious men lay amidst a pile of shattered furniture and broken bottles. The big Australian had lost his jacket and his shirt hung open. A pressure cut in his scalp dribbled blood down the side of his neck and one eye was blackened and swollen shut. Several of his knuckles were split and bleeding and his body shone with sweat in the flickering electrical lights. The lounge singer peeked from behind the piano, which had been incongruously spared the destruction of the brawl, with wide scared eyes. Jack tried to wink at her but the left side of his face wasn’t working properly.

“Put your hands up and come quietly!” a voice boomed through a megaphone. Jack swiveled his head to the door where a dozen MP’s stood, riot batons in hand. The Australian contemptuously hacked a glob of spit and blood onto the floor before lifting his gaze to meet that of the nervous looking MPs.

“Yeah?”You and what bloody army?”he laughed before vanishing beneath a tide khaki uniforms and swinging batons.


[b][color=DAA520]History:[/color][/b] 
Jack Buchannan was born in Brisbane Australia in 1883. His father was an itinerant drover and took only a periodic interest in the boy. At thirteen he left home to strike it rich on the gold fields in northern Queensland. When that failed he took work as a drover and a shearer, while he didn’t make his fortune he did get a first class education in riding, shooting, brawling and living rough.
 
At the age of seventeen Jack knifed a man in a drunken brawl. Rather than wait around to talk to the authorities, he signed on to a tramp steamer headed for Singapore. After nearly a year of knocking about Southeast Asia  he landed in cape town South Africa. Without a ship and with his pay vanishing he found his way north to where the British were raising a colonial regiment for the ongoing war with the Boers.

The Bushvelt Carbineers were a temporary unit put together to fight Boer guerrillas and Jack, always pugnacious, got his first real taste of action. It was a brutal baptism of hard fighting, hard riding and constant ambush and counter ambush. When the war ended in 1902 Jack regretfully parted ways with his comrades.

Once again unemployed, Jack took work where he could find it. Travelling as a crewman on steam ships, he found work as a mercenary in half a dozen minor conflicts from Bali to Nicaragua. He won fortunes in the jungles and lost them at the card table and never stayed in one place longer than he had to.

In early 1914, assured by old comrades that his youthful knifing had been forgotten, he returned to Australia with the intent of settling down.  He purchased a small farm and married (to considerable scandal) a Bengali woman he had met in India some years earlier. Unfortunately peace was already crumbling. When the August Crisis broke the call went out to raise colonial regiments and Buchannan, now 31, enlisted in the AIF and was granted the rank of lieutenant.

Decorated for bravery during the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign, Buchannan fought with mounted division and was seriously wounded during the battle of Magdhaba and shipped to England to recover. While in the field hospital he befriended a Major Wren of the Royal Flying Corp who, under irregular circumstances, waggled him an appointment in the RFC. As an experience machine gunner he was a valuable addition to Wren squadron. Despite constant disciplinary problems the high attrition rates of 1917 put a premium on experienced men and Jack eventually attended flight training in England. By 1918 the former drover from the bush was flying scout aircraft over France. 

After the armistice Jack volunteered for and fought in the abortive allied intervention in Russia where he was once again wounded. With the allied withdrawal he mustered out and returned to Australia. Upon returning home he found that his wife had been carried off by the Spanish Flu and that his property was besieged by creditors. After a rash of mysterious deaths Buchannan decided that it might be best if he left the country once again.

Since that time he has worked as a pilot and a mercenary in a number of ventures in Asia, Africa and South America. An aging veteran Buchannan is viewed as a versatile and dependable, if somewhat irascible asset. 
 [/hider]