I want to play an outsider to the town for a few reasons. An outside perspective (someone who doesn't live in the center of evil) is always a good perspective on how wicked something is. It also allows the GM to elaborate on the world, because things that are a given in the town to the locals would have to be explained to this outsider who doesn't know any better. Also, depending on how the story goes, who's to say that the town isn't "recruiting" its next resident? But, since you're the GM, of course you have the final say on whether or not playing a visitor is permitted.

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Name: Thaddeus (Thad) Montague Ziegmann

Age: 27

Gender: Male

Occupations: Freelance Paranormal Journalist, Freelance Photographer, Exorcist (fraud)

Personality: A cynic at heart, Thad is a lying, conniving, man who spends his days researching paranormal activities that he can make money through his work as a journalist for the nationwide magazine morbidly named RIP Weekly. He does not believe in the supernatural, thinking it to be the result of paranoid and overly emotional beliefs and he has no shame exploiting these supposedly "weak" people. Despite being relatively wealthy for a journalist, he is incredibly cheap and the only thing he splurges on is his camera equipment, due to the fact that his articles have earned him vastly more money once he started including pictures of the phenomena that he reports on. A college dropout, Thad's incredibly religious parents made sure that he always attended the most devout Catholic schools. Bored by the tedium of education, the only subject that ever intrigued him was the teachings of what demons and angels were capable of doing and the studying of miracles. Don't be misled, however, Thad completely lacks religious belief, thinking it to be a scam. However, this does not stop him from wearing priest’s garbs and carrying religious iconography so that he can sell his lies so much more effectively to the common folk.

History: Thad dropped out of college on his twenty-first birthday and quickly took up various journalism jobs, most of which he quit after only a couple months. When he was twenty-four, he took the job of paranormal journalism and has stuck with it ever since, due to the significant pay bump compared to the other low-level jobs. Shortly after taking the job, Thad studied the "art" of exorcism so that he can not only earn money from RIP Weekly, but also from his victims who are usually willing to pay out the ear for what they think is legitimate blessings and wards. Over the last year, Thad has started to become bored with his job as every article written becomes routine. He is quickly running out of a backlog of articles that he can give the magazine, so with only three months remaining before he's officially out of material, Thad has been searching high and low for a story that will not only intrigue his readers, but also himself. One day, his colleague, who writes the culinary page for the magazine, came back from a day trip to Delville Heights complaining how the stories that thrill the neighborhood children were horrendously misleading and that the town itself was incredibly boring with nothing to see. Remembering the tall tales that his friends and he used to tell each other about the "Devil's Heights" as they called it, Thad felt the sudden and overpowering urge to pack his bags and go debunk Delville Heights' myths and legends. If he plays his cards right, this will be the article that just might win over the nation.

Skills: Highly skilled at photograph composition and development, Thad is also an incredibly competent liar who knows a lot about the mythos of the paranormal activity that he reports on. Something of a conman, Thad is highly charismatic and is skilled with the pen. He has almost too-perfect handwriting and is quite skilled at forging signatures so that he can always prove his "authenticity" to the common folk.

Weaknesses: Thad is overly analytic and will often try to disprove and disarm threatening situations, rather than simply running away or defending himself. He is arrogant, so he will often underestimate his opponents and he has no real combat skills to speak of. As a con man, if he is ever in a situation where no one believes him or is willing to trust him, his abilities rather quickly diminish, though he is not above attempts to trick people over to his side.