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BangoSkank Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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Bio

Characters

I made some of these CS templates and was given some by others so if you like one let me know and I'll send it to you

Name: Roald Cliffbloom

Race/Species: Ratling

Gender: Male

Age: 43

Physical Description (as detailed as possible please, pictures not accepted.):
Roald is small in stature, not surprising for a Ratling, and hairy, also not surprising. He's tan and oddly fit for a race commonly known for their pot bellies. He has wild overgrown eyebrows and an up turned nose scrunched up with a large forehead. He has thick messy dark brown hair which is gradually going gray and sideburns as well as a neigh permanent five o' clock shadow. His default facial expression is a frown.

Attire:
Light Brown/Grey Head Wrap
Climbing Ropes Wrapped Up Around Shoulder
Green Cameleoline Cloak
Militarum Auxilia Chest Strap with Two Pockets and Skull Emblem
Standard Olive Drab Uniform Shirt and Pants
Thick Belt with a Canteen Holder Attached on One Side and an Ammo Box on the other
Bandaging Wraps Around Wrists/Hands and Ankles/Feet

Personality:
With his fellow Rogue Traders, whether alone with them or peacefully exploring a town with them, he is loud, crude, coarse, obnoxious, drunken, lecherous, gluttonous, and yet somehow still charming. He takes full advantage of his small nonthreatening stature and large eyes so that even when he presses things too far and gets a well deserved slap or shove the conversations generally keep on. He is easy to talk to, easy not to take seriously, and somehow despite how offensive he can be he rarely actually offends. He wants the things everyone wants, he's just more open about wanting them and generally wants more of them.

Aboard the ship he serves as the mechanic.  His small size allows him to get around the moving parts more easily and to attend to them from angles that many wouldn't be able to.  His curiosity, persistence, and ample application of grease, oil, lubricant, or whatever other fluid he thinks likely to help him solve a problem have served the ship well in keeping things moving.  Often times the smell of oil and muffled sound of incoherent swearing echo from the oddest sections of the ship.

In the field, when out on a mission, he is much more professional and quiet during the scouting and traveling phases. Given an order he will quickly find a way to escape even his fellow Trader's view and then pop up again some time later having ventured ahead far afield. When the rifles start cracking his loud whoops tend to accompany his return fire and often, immediately after one of his traps goes off, his barking laughter can be heard from somewhere or other in the battlefield.

One of his goals is to become influential/powerful/wealthy enough to improve his peoples standing in the Empire. After the many slaughters and near genocide at Ornsworld he wants to secure a future for his people and be remembered for doing so.  His secondary goal is to get laid, get paid, and repeat that cycle over and over as much as possible until he drops dead. It is often not at all clear which is the priority for Roald.

He is a drunken lecherous loud mouth, but also a sneaky, half mad, mean, little bugger. He works for a paycheck, the notoriety, and to get his hands on booze, drugs, tech, and women from across the universe.

History:
Roald's professional life began in the Militarum Auxilia. With his fellow Abhumans he served in this specialist division of the Astra Militarum as a member of a crew of Ratlings. He didn't manage to fit in quite as well as he had hoped. While his combat capabilities were exemplary his personality didn't do him many favors. Certain things are expected among a company of Ratlings but even then there are limits. Roald's inability to exist within these bounds led to his exile from the Militarum Auxilia.

He had served well as a Trailblazer. His confidence, restlessness and some tendencies toward solitude made him a perfect fit for the primary responsibilities of the role, and his penchant for explosions and sometimes rather disturbing exuberance when sending rounds into the general cranium region of unsuspecting enemy troops served him well. He'd joined them in enough campaigns and saw them through enough tight spots that when his general debauchery and penchant for "borrowing" stuff from adjacent units and the populace in general got him in trouble he was assigned to stay on Bakka, participating in repairs and maintenance of the Imperial battlefleets docked there.

He figured out fairly quickly that the whole damn place was hot and smokey, the company wasn't much to look at, and there was no one and nothing fun to shoot. Though he enjoyed the work at first the sedate life of a full time mechanic would never fit him and so sought to join on with the first Rogue Trader to make a stop on Bakka and begin his new life.

Skills:
Roald is the consummate Trailblazer, having found a role that fits his natural abilities and inclinations rather well.

In town or, during his Auxilia days, around camp he is quite proficient at procuring near anything he or his unit need or want. When he chooses to he can be very outgoing and friendly, while he is almost always obnoxious and coarse. He is fairly good at disarming hostile but not yet violent strangers due to his diminutive size in the hope to gain useful information about nearby likely hostile areas or the location of fun toys to play with.

Despite his often loud and obnoxious nature among his crewmates when he is on the job he is eerily capable of evading detection and remaining undetected while moving through hostile areas at a relatively high rate of speed. He can swiftly move up the sheerest cliffs and wiggle through the smallest of openings due to his small stature and considerable proportionate strength. Having moved unseen through these areas he is then able to help others navigate their dangers with minimal risk utilizing freshly made trails or old trails freshly uncovered.

When things inevitably wind their way toward some folks he is fond of shooting a lot of folks he doesn't particularly care for he utilizes some of the tech has has managed to "acquire" over the years to harass, distract, and slow down the enemy. Stealth cloaks, combat webbing, ropes, hooks, all manner of traps, and his small size and fondness for finding crevices to stick himself into (hee hee) allow him to create opportunities for himself to engage the enemy when they are at their weakest.

When it comes down to the actual shooting he uses those traps, his small size, his speed, and his accuracy with his Long-Las to confound the enemy and attempt to set them up to be ambushed by his fellow Traders or caught in their own crossfire. He has the uncanny and sometimes downright unsettling ability to set traps up in the most devious of places to inflict grievous wounds and sew discord.

Equipment and Weapons:
-Vox-Caster
-Monocular Telescope
-Canteen on Belt
-Cameleoline Cloak
-Climbing Gear

-Long-Las Rifle
-Combat Knife (attached to waist)
-Various traps and trap making materials

Name: 
Neophyte Aloysius Ry'hles

Age: 
23 

Appearance: 
A strong jaw line, a large nose, a brutal cut of brow.  Piercing eyes.  A generally intimidating appearance, developed during his Initiation.  Coupled with a sense of confidence that often borders on, and ventures well into, arrogance.  His skin has become spotty and pockmarked from repeated heat damage, it now more often than not has a slight dark red tinge to it, as of skin so often burnt and heat blasted that it no longer has the inclination to peel.

Equipment: 
Despite Aloysius' high opinion of himself he possesses the standard issue equipment of a Scout of his experience.  
Deep Green Carapace Armor made of overlapping ceramite plating, appearing, at least to Aloysius, to be a significantly upgraded version of that used for the Astra Militarum.  Though it has been modified to account for their genetically altered and bio-enhanced bodies he is eager to step up to a full fledged Marine and the Power Armor that comes with that position.
He carries a standard issue .75 Bolter, two Krak grenades on one thigh and a Combat Knife on his chest, though he yearns to make his way to a special weapons team.

Psychological profile: 
Aloysius has a high opinion of himself and of the Salamanders as a whole.  These high expectations have served him well at times, pushing him to grind away his own inadequacies and allowing him to survive the arduous Initiation process, but they have also worked against him at times.  He has failed to hold his tongue or to speak with tact several times, driving a wedge between himself, his contemporaries, and at times his superiors.  Bemoaning his own failures as well as though of his squad mates has done him few favors.  His intentions are good, and the clarity of those intentions is likely what allowed him to remain in the program, but if those rough edges are not burnt away in the crucible of service his potential will likely go unexplored.  Save perhaps his potential in regard to forging armor and weapons and perhaps ensuring the Chapter grounds remain spotless.

Character Name: Malva Bolger 
Race/Species: Halfling of The Moot
Gender: Female

Age: 28

Career and Skills: Malva poses the tools and skills of a thief though she does not consider herself as such.  She has made a living working with trading caravans and ships keeping track of their logistics and finances while learning some of the basics of sailing.  She is somewhat versed in swordsmanship from long hours spent training on the deck, though this practice was not particularly heated.  Her curiosity, small size and persistence makes her an effective manager and and keeps her well informed.

Weapons:  Malva carries a dagger she uses as a Sword and a sling with rocks which she has become quite proficient with.  She would like to carry a pistol as she has seen some of the men carry but doesn't own one and hasn't had an opportunity to practice.  They do make a lovely noise though.

Attire: Malva wears unremarkable clothing.  She has a set of adventuring clothes rolled up and hidden away in a suitably small and rarely seen crevice in the ship, but she generally wears the lightest most comfortable clothes she can while continuing on the charade that she is a man.

Equipment/Other: Malva carries around a small very fine quality satchel to hold her notebooks, sketchbooks, pens, glasses and other knickknacks from home.  A compass, a necklace, a bracelet made from roots, and a small carved wooden bird.

Physical Description: Brownish Red Hair shorn roughly to about shoulder length and tied into a rakish ponytail.

Mental Description/Personality: Braver than she realizes

Background/History: While young a party of humans came to visit their town, stopped in their home on the border of Sauerpafel, her father was reading her a bed time story when there was a commotion from downstairs.  Malva heard her mother cry out and her father rushed down the stairs.  she was too afraid to follow.  a commotion broke out.  the killed her father and rushed out.  her adult brother, Shel, chased after them later that day and while he was never seen again tales of his bravery spread through the town.  she has worked with the ships thinking no one is aware she is a woman.  they all know.  the captain has sworn that any man that lays an ill hand on her will die slowly.

Nickname because small, clever, curious

Character Name: 
Udo Wanderfoot

Race/Species: 
Halfling

Gender: 
Male

Age: 
38

Career: 
Udo worked as a Bounty Hunter throughout the Empire after a brief spell as a Fieldwarden in a small frontier Halfling town and many years working as an unofficial "Bounty" Hunter.  

Skills: 
Udo speaks Common, Halfling, and Reikspiel.  
He is knowledgeable about the geneaology and heraldry of the Empire.  
He is skilled in Outdoor Survival, Cooking, Perception, Gossip, Search, Shadowing, Silently Moving, Following Trails, the Specialist Weapon Groups Slings and Entangling, Strike to Stun, Strike Mighty Blow, and has unusually good Night Vision.

Weapons: 
A small flanged mace, a well crafted shank, a sling and crafted projectiles, a bola, a net

Attire: 
Plain cotton shirts, vests, and pants, each in different colors.  A thicker brown adventuring vest.  A green parka. A clean more presentable town outfit bundled up and black shoes to match.  A beautiful amulet of Sigmar.

Equipment/Other:
Several thick sketchbooks and pens, a very small tent, a small pot to cook in and a small bowl to eat from

Physical Description (as detailed as possible please, pictures not accepted.):
Udo is 38 years old, 90 lbs, and 3'7".  With thick brown hair generally combed back and parted, sharp green eyes, a bulbous nose, and no beard on his face save for well groomed muttonchops, he is in every way physically an unremarkable Halfling.  He no longer looks like a Halfling in his childhood but he appears to have lived a fairly comfortable life.  The only thing that might betray his less than peaceful life is his ragged left ear, a souvenir of that fateful night.  

Mental Description/Personality:
Udo presents himself as a loud gregarious man when it suits him and adopts a quieter more proper personality when the time calls for it.  He is very friendly and very quick witted, he uses these two things and his slight stature to ingratiate himself with people who may prove informative.  Though in town he often appears quite happy go lucky he is in fact quite cunning.  His personality is in short divided, he is quite kind and friendly with his friends and indeed with many strangers until and unless he needs to be decidedly less friendly.

Background/History:
A few years into Udo's work as a Fieldwarden his town was beset upon by a blood thirsty band of cultists.  Though he fought alongside his fellow Fieldwardens he was quickly clubbed hard over the head with a small shield and left for dead.  Upon awakening he saw that after overcoming the others the cultists had been much less kind to the rest of his people.  They had been gathered, slaughtered, and butchered.  With nothing left Udo spent many years hunting them down and his personal attachment to this pursuit taught him precisely how to do exactly that, hunt and catch a man.   

Udo perfected his bounty hunting skills hunting down the cultists who had destroyed his small town in his youth.  The journey took him many years longer than it might have if he were a little larger, a little stronger,  a little more intimidating, a little better suited to simply carving up the monsters as they so deserved.  Udo had spent his youth celebrating a happy carefree life loving his small body and his peaceful people had come to know and ended up spending many after his youth cursing it all.  Seeking his revenge and seeing it escape him time and time again.  

That loss formed a great divide in his life, a time before and a time after, and nearly all of his memories now are from the time after.  Many years spent in pursuit in it's many forms.  Mingling with the common folk to learn about small time criminals, popular taverns, the travelings and trevails of the underclass.  They had even taught him how to cook good nourishing food with nothing but what he could gather in the wilds.  Mingling with the upper class to learn the geneaology and heraldry of the realm and to sharpen up his Reikspiel.  He gradually became better at it all as he moved from cultist to cultist.  

When his hunt was finished and the last cultist found Udo reached out to an old fat friend to celebrate the day.  An old well-celebrated chef who had taught Udo how to cook and with whom Udo had shared many a long trip.  He had a small cottage amid the mountain and along the river just West of Eilhart. Together they made a rare specialty which stood right on that border between Royal Extravagance and Commoner Ingenuity.  Wild Boar Meat, Chicken Broth (prepared the night before), Fresh Cracked Black Pepper, Olive Oil, Butter (generous), Garlic, Bay Leaves, Caraway Seeds, Carrots, Celery, Reik Sprouts, Mushrooms, Parsley, and a happy helping of Potatoes.  Cooked up all together, low and slow, and stirred at regular intervals to prevent uneven cooking.  Pour it generously into bowls for the Commoners, arrange it artfully on a plate with a reasonable amount of broth drizzled atop for the Upper Class.  Garnish it with Madman's Cap to bring the final cultist to rest.

The fat man carried a generous pot out to a small table on a prepared outcrop there.  Years ago they had swept it clear of debris and trimmed back the weeds and brush that grew there for the wedding of the fat man's niece.  She was a beautiful if stupid thing though the ceremony had gone off without a hitch and brought her a better life than she could ever had had with such a simple (if accomplished) parentage.  The fat man poured a bowl for each of them, having learned from Udo the joy of messily slurping up the broth when the meal was finished, then hurried back to fetch some good wine while Udo put the final touches on their bowls.  They ate together and spoke about the years that had come and passed and then with a full stomach and a clear conscious, after that fat man had fallen into an unnatural slumber, Udo lifted his mace and brought it down on the fat man's head until there was little left but mush and powder from the crushed rock he rested on.  Udo then finished his bowl quickly, packed the bowl up, and returned to the fat man's cottage to pick up a more recognizable memento, and walked into his new life.  

With his vengeance finally achieved he felt a burden lifted off his shoulders, but with it went the purpose that had driven him for so long.  With no specific goal but a rather effective set of skills he decided, before that fine meal had even really begun to digest, that he would continue to hunt men.  He would turn those lessons he had learned and relationships he had formed toward hunting men for the Empire rather than for his own satisfaction.  Money proved to be a suitable substitute for revenge, if not for home.

Character Name: Shel "Surefoot" Applewood

Race/Species: Halfling (Formerly of the Moot)

Gender: Male 

Age: 34 

Career (if any) and Skills:
While protecting the borders of his home in the Moot as a Fieldwarden Shel spent much time learning to forage for ingredients and to cook traditional Halfling dishes.  His culinary interests proved greater than the simple paletes of his people, who never appreciated his genius, leading him to venture out into the world.  In the years that followed, working as a Ranger, he learned much about tracking and hunting.  When things became difficult he took the opportunity to further research such interests as climbing up cliff sides, camouflaging into his environment, moving stealthily away from danger, hiding until that danger passed, and wishing the baddies would just please go away.  His time as a Ranger amidst a Mercenary company taught him to read and write at a basic level in the style of the Empire or of Bretonnians, and more importantly helped him become an accomplished map maker.  In battle, he is quite useful at distracting and delaying as well as scouting and fleeing.  Shel is quite handy at a distance with either bow or sling, he is passable in close quarters using a dirk as a sword.  In a one on one situation with little place to hide, he will likely quickly assist the party by running away from his foe, granting his party an opportunity to ambush that foe as they had most definitely discussed beforehand.

Weapons: 
Shel carries a well made but quite basic dirk in a Halfling sized buckled belt he had custom made for him.  He likes the way he looks with it, like a proper adventurer, but seldom uses it as he prefers to keep his distance.  For that purpose he carries a particularly short shortbow on his back with a small quiver of arrows and often has a sling wrapped around a shoulder or around his quiver.  He has a small number of quite heavy metal octagonal projectiles with sharp edges.

Attire:
He wears a light green tunic with a brown leather apron over it and brown pants, held up by a custom made Halfling sized buckled belt with a sheathe for his butcher's knife and small leather straps to hold a wooden soup spoon and a dinner fork.  He often wears a chef's hat he bestowed upon himself and carries a large (to him) leather backpack with a padded shoulder strap.

Equipment/Other: 
Shel has long traveled with a mule, their size being more appropriate for him.  He also finds them to be smarter and more nimble than a small horse or pony.  He carries in his backpack a small assortment of items useful to him in cooking and map making.  It doesn't hold much but the party can generally procure most of what they need when they stop.

Physical Description (as detailed as possible please, pictures not accepted.): 
Shel has very light green eyes and a mop of curly reddish brown hair. He cannot grow much of a beard, virtually no beard at all in fact, but has voluptuous mutton chops.  He is slightly skinny for a halfling, which leads some to question his cooking ability but they simply don't appreciate his genius. He stands at 3'4, right about average for a Halfling.

Mental Description/Personality: 
Shel thinks quite highly of himself, believing that he holds himself to quite a high standard, and holds others to that same standard.  Despite the realities of the situation he often sees himself as brave and appreciates as much in others.  He is very proud of his brave approach to the culinary arts and while he will not hold it against those whose paletes are woefully undeveloped he takes quite a liking to anyone properly appreciative of his abilities.  He is a very happy drunk and quite susceptible to flattery.

Background/History:
Shel Applewood led the happy safe life that it typical of his people. Halfling's don't take up much space, enjoying homes that are small and cozy (even for them) rather than vast and expansive, and that coupled with their famous hospitality allows them to get along rather well. As a young man Shel wanted to follow in the footsteps of his parents who ran a famous bed and breakfast, he wanted to become a famous Chef. At the age of 24 he came to realize that he had gone as far as he would as a Chef without leaving the Moot.  The chefs of the Moot lacked the bravery needed to step beyond the shallow pool of their knowledge.  Even at such a young age he could learn no more from them.  They lacked the courage to try new ingredients and to take brave actions.  He would not dedicate the next twenty years of his life to recreating recipes created decades ago by amateurish Halflings who had never ventured beyond the Moot.  He would not follow in the their footsteps, but rather would blaze a trail of his own. 

Always a rather curious Halfling, Shel seized the opportunity when a large mercenary company was passing through his town. He prepared a particularly sumptuous meal for the company and presented it to them himself, explaining what he had made and how he had prepared it. He had hoped the leader, a stern faced man well past his youth, would hem and haw and heap praises upon him, but instead they simply ate their meals quickly and headed to their rooms. He had given up hope when the mercenary groups second in command came into the kitchen and invited him into the company. They had long had stomach issues, but his cooking had cleaned them straight out.  How had he known?

They were not what you would call a friendly group, but alongside them Shel was able to explore the world and devise recipes of his own. He had learned of many long lost practices.  He had learned of the proper use of many little known spices.  As a Halfling he was rather dexterous and among a crew of humans, particularly among a crew of often drunken humans, he learned how to stay out of the way and (remembering again that they were drunk lonely men) how to stay hidden. On his trips out from camp to gather flora and hunt he learned to scout out the road ahead, and in order to better scout he learned to draw maps. With the tiny hands he was given at birth and the attention to detail he had learned as a cook a regular piece of paper was a canvas, he found to his delight that he was able to make maps that were uniquely intricate.

Since then he has always traveled, his skills as a mapmaker and scout overpowering the curious nature of his cooking.  In time the peasants he travels with may come to appreciate his brilliant culinary accomplishments.  His last party had proved quite resistant to sampling his latest masterpieces and so he set out to find a new company more appreciative of his adventurous cooking.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Asset  
Cross Reference : Weapon Series
(MIA - Re-acquirement at Nova Priority)

***Security Pass Required - Identity Logged***
***If Accessed in Error Alert Level 4 Supervisor Immediately***

Birth Name:James Howlett

Codename: Wolverine/Logan/Patch/Weapon X

Age: 80+ Estimated

Gender: Male

Appearance:  Subject is 5'3 and 300 pounds.  Short, well-muscled, hairy, often angry.  Long hair and sideburns make subject stick out but when subject shaves those away it can be difficult to track visually.  

Personality: 
Subject is resolutely resistant to controls.  Responds well to leadership and mentor roles but resists any longer term assignments which would include schedules and limit ability to travel.  Subject responds poorly to authority.  Subject questions orders publicly, disobeys order, dresses down subordinates and superiors, and will occasionally walk away from posts and duties without a word of explanation.  Often into the wilderness, definite preference for Canadian wilderness.

Subject seems to desire company of others yet often will depart from that company to go dwell alone for extended periods of time or seek new company.  Subject displays great long-term loyalty but poor short-term loyalty.  Often best methods of re-acquiring subject is to acquire those associated with subject and provide a trail of crumbs.  Such actions require authorization from the highest levels due to inherent high level of risk entailed.

When acquired can be controlled for short stints of time through combination use of carefully controlled substance exposure and psychic or other mental blocks or insertions.  Subject has built up resistance to these methods due to repeated exposures and proximity to Subject Charles Xavier.  Reference Weapon Series and Cross Reference to World Wars, Vietnam War, Iraq War, further cross reference suggestions available from Level 4 Supervisors.

Acquirement Suggested only for short term operations.  Use and Burn.  Subject is suspicious and nosy.  Treat like mushroom and dispose.  Ensure all records of operations are purged, subject is relentless in pursuit.

Powers/Abilities: 
Peak Human/Super Soldier levels of Strength and Agility
Adamantium Skeleton 
Adamantium Claws, retractable from both forearms
Extensive experience in hunting/stalking/operating
Extensive training in small arms and hand to hand combat
High Grade Healing Factor : S.H.I.E.L.D. From 1278(b) Level 4 Supervisor Research Pass Suggested for Further Information

Supporting Cast: 
Sabretooth: Victor Creed (MIA)
Omega Red: Arkady Gregorovich Rossovich (Deceased, Suspected)
Itsu: (Deceased)
Classified
Classified
Marvel Girl: Jean Grey (Deceased)
Cyclops: Scott Summers
Professor X: Charles Xavier
Jubilee: Jubilation Lee
Shadow Cat: Katherine Pride
Kid Omega: Quentin Quire

Extra/Notes: 
I particularly like two versions of Wolverine.  The street level vigilante bits where he is chasing down murderers and kidnappers and human traffickers and that sort of stuff OR the stuff where he is acting as more of a mentor and less of a weapon to be used.  My intention at least, if I can stay on point, is to sort of combine the two.  This version of Logan is tired of being used.  Tired of the people he puts his faith in turning out to be monsters.  Professor X and Hydra/SHIELD in particular.  I have a particular interest in the concepts of mortality and what eternal or wildly elongated life would mean in practice.  So yeah.

History: 
Spent a lot of time staring into that abyss.  Sometimes wasn't the only one looking through my eyes.  France, Germany, Africa, Japan, Viet-fuckin-nam, Madripoor, Mexico, good old US of A, Canada of course.  Shed blood all over the world, bled a lot of it too.  Seen all manner of cruelty and evil, come to the conclusion it, Evil, ain't some alien thing from Hell that reaches out to us every few decades.  It's a thing that lives in all of us, some more than others.  God knows I've got enough of it in me.  Ol' Kurt Wagner taught me plenty 'bout that.  

Stare into that abyss and it stares back at you.  Me and it we old friends.  Very old.  Ain't no spring chicken anymore.  Body still is, but the shit takes its toll.  Wonder sometimes how we do it.  How we keep on pushing year after year, decade after decade.  More than a few of us been doing this for generations now.  Run into folk I've been friends with or enemies ta or both for longer than most folk get to live.  Plenty of folk tried to help or tried to stand in my way.  I took plenty of their lives, those that tried to stop me, and just me being me ended up getting plenty of them that tried to help me dead.  Plenty more of them just wilted, like people do eventually.  It's like them Kansas fellas said, Dust in the Wind.   

I can't see myself just sitting by while bad things happen.  Not in me.  But maybe I can stop being such a damn ass about things.  Stop running out on friends first sign of them caring a little too much.  Got kids to think about, them that don't hate me and ain't tried to kill me at least.  I can hope for redemption for them that do want to kill me too can't I?  Nothing says I can't.  Maybe this old dog can learn a new trick.  Maybe this short hairy mutt can even make up for the dark old days.

C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T   P R O P O S A L

J O N A H   H E X 

J O N A H   H E X  ♦   B O U N T Y   H U N T E R  ♦   T H E   W E S T   ♦   F R O N T I E R   J U S T I C E

C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T:

"You don't bury him the way he ought to be buried, Smithy, then you better get all your personal business fixed right --
-- cause you'll be stuffin' one of your own boxes."

November 1st, 1838 - North Western Missouri
Jonah Hex is born and grows up a regular victim of physical abuse at the hands of Woodson Hex, an embittered alcoholic father, and a regular witness to his mother's own brutal beatings at the hands of the same man.  Some small relief that Old Man Woodson found his son made a better punching bag than his wife.

Summer, 1851 - Heading West
Thirteen year old Jonah Hex is growing wild and Woodson takes him off West to turn him in to a proper man.  Teach him roping, hunting, riding, all manner of manly pursuits.  Sumbitch sells him in to slavery, his idea, to the Mescalero Apache in exchange for safe passage through New Mexico.  Apache work him constant until he proved his worth by saving the Chieftain from a wily puma ambush.  Jonah is made a full-fledged member of the tribe and adopted by Chieftain but sure enough the Chieftain's blood son, Noh-Tante, grows resentful of his new brother.  Both men had their eye on a young woman in the tribe, White Fawn, and it all came to a head during their manhood rite.  

Spring, 1854 - New Mexico
Sixteen years old and undergoing the manhood ritual with Noh-Tante that would allow each to take a wife, he is betrayed by his brother while they rustle horses from an enemy tribe, the Kiowa, and is left for dead.  Dead he would have been if a Cavalry patrol hadn't happened along.  Though the Cavalry mistook him for one of their own they ended up shooting him in the gut and leaving him for dead, once again, when he tried to stop their slaughter of the entire Kiowa tribe.  By the time he had been rescued by an old trapper and returned to his tribe's camp they were long gone and he was alone once more.

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C H A R A C T E R   N O T E S:

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S A M P L E   P O S T:

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| Character Differences |

Jonah Hex lived once long ago during the Civil War of the United States.  Raised in the South he may well have ended up fighting for the Confederacy were it not for the positive influence of his father, Woodson Hex.  Fleeing the war (and potential charges regarding the sudden disappearance of his wife) himself Woodson took his son with him and exchanged him in New Mexico for safe passage through tribal lands.

Raised there among the tribe until as a young man he got into a violent confrontation with the natural born son of his adoptive father, the Chieftain of the tribe.  Exiled from the tribe he went on to live a long rough life in the Wild West as a bounty hunter and all around rough customer.  His story departs here from his traditional treatment in D.C. Comics.

After a hard brutal life he found a swift violent end and his body became a curiosity for some time before being acquired by a government run private museum of just such curiosities as well as any usable biological material.  As the world developed and the United States government became aware and involved in superhumans, mutants, and in time the supernatural several government operations opened up.  Some operating officially and openly but many operating under more than one level of cover.  One such program, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development, came into possession of Hex's body and one of their number with a particular affinity for speaking with the deceased talked him back from the abyss.

Classified as a Weapon for some time, perhaps correctly, Jonah Hex walks again.  Now officially designated as Weapon Hex he came to become a major part of the B.P.R.D. in this reality.  Largely filling in the large mean bastard with a big gun role that Hellboy plays in most realities.  He is dispatched to help solve mysteries and put down threats of a supernatural and particularly dangerous nature.

As part of B.P.R.D.'s weaponizing Hex now has a substantial healing factor and as a consequence of his long visit in the lands of the dead he now has a connection to the underworld.  A sixth sense essentially.  Beyond that he is simply a large, mean, sharp shooting, dirty fighting, hard drinking son of a bitch.

| Brief World Background |

The world Jonah Hex/Weapon Hex comes from is a more violent and more magical iteration of the DC and Marvel Worlds.  One without the big hitters that could likely solve many of the problems quickly.  Without a Superman or his rogue's gallery the government had to, or chose to, get more involved in matters.  Some agencies monitor the superheroes of the world, others monitor the more mundane but still perfectly sinister machinations of the unpowered criminals that litter the world, the B.P.R.D. keeps an eye out for the magical, spiritual and just generally freaky happenings.

At times the B.P.R.D. comes in to conflict with the spheres of other existing heroes.  Daredevil and The Hand, The X-Men and their stranger foes, and often with many of the more street level heroes when B.P.R.D. is called in and collateral damage occurs.

| Brief Character Background |

Dispatched on just another mission Hex found himself inside a decades old parking structure which had been torn down and bulldozed twelve years ago investigating an anomaly.  Strange happenings but that was par for the course.  Hackles raised, massive revolver loaded up and ready for bear, he moved slowly up the levels of the parking structure.  Winds blowing up small dirt devils despite the parking structures immaculate keeping.  Top to bottom, parking spots, security booth, all four stairwells, nothing supernatural.  Nothing amiss.  Except a moment later the sky changed colors and he was all at once in an entirely new world.  Some powerful mojo at work.

Captain America
Steve Rogers, Age 25 (48) (b. 1920)
Based in San Francisco, California
Active since approximately 1941

Character Concept

For the world the end of the Great War was some 23 years ago.  The ways of that world are already becoming things of occasional nostalgia and occasional disdain.  They were quaint times, story book times, to many now who never lived through them.  The past is viewed through the prism of the present.  To Steve Rogers, sputtering and shivering to life in a land he was at war with, seemingly, yesterday the world has gone through this extensive change in no time at all.  Yesterday was April 27th 1945 and then suddenly today was December 2nd 1967.  Today today is December 31st, 1967 and Steve Rogers is due to meet with a group of men who may better understand what he is going through.

My concept is a slightly different spin of the 1960s Captain America, that is the Captain America still grieving Bucky's loss and trying to find his way in the world.  Potentially working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and encountering Nick Fury again.  Rather than Nixon bringing on the "Nomad" character later on I intend to have Steve Roger's in roughly that spot now, having woken to a very different America in a very different time.

I want to explore what Captain America means in so much as what America means to Steve Roger's Captain America and to Frank Simpson's Captain America who is in a very different position.  What this means in Vietnam, what Captain America's role in a war should be, what America's role in the world should be, and what Captain America's role should be in peace time.

A man who grew up in a time when the entirety of Western Civilization seemed to be in danger of being destroyed and being replaced with an ugly war machine pushed ever forward by an ugly ideology now finds himself in a world where things do not seem so clear.  There is not so obvious an other that must be beaten.  America is not so clearly a force for great good, she is not so surrounded by Allies, it is not so easy to say she is in the right.  So where does that leave Captain America.

Arc 1 : Steve Rogers in San Francisco, trying to figure out who and what he is now.  Talking with Dum Dum Duggan and other veterans.  Learning about America in the 60s.  Frank Simpson in Vietnam, enjoying what he's doing and forming his own opinions about war.

Depending on what happens with events and connected characters I might change future Arcs but I'm thinking...

Arc 2 : Steve Rogers is getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. matters and past evils, learning about Frank Simpson, Vietnam, Civil Rights issues, Veterans in general and Communism.  Frank Simpson is more fully involved in Vietnam, becoming an independent actor in addition to his more traditional role.

Arc 3 : Steve Rogers is putting things together involving corruption and the legacy of WW2.  Frank Simpson is heading toward a clash with Steve Rogers. Trying to find out why.  

Key Notes

Name   : Steve Rogers
Alias  : Captain America
Birth  : 1920, New York
Mother : Deceased, in Rogers' early child
Father : Deceased, in Rogers' teenage years
Enlistment : 1940

Important Dates : 
- 1939 Major George Barnes KIA during training, Camp Leigh
- 1941 Bucky Barnes joins Steve Rogers in combat
- 1945 February, Bucky Barnes lost over English Channel
- 1945 April, Steve Rogers lost over North Atlantic Ocean

M.I.A.     : April 14, 1945
Resurfaced : Classified - Need to Know

Supporting Characters:

Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan
Boston Born and Bred.  Circus strongman.  British Army.  Howling Commando.  Semi-Retired.  S.H.I.E.L.D.
Runs a bar in San Francisco CA catering to Veterans.

Frank "Nuke or The Captain America of Vietnam" Simpson
Born in Ohio.  Parents murdered by short ugly government agent.  Raised for the military.  
In his element in Vietnam.

Isaiah Green
Assistant Gunner to Frank Simpson.  Tactically minded.  Not much good behind a barrel.
Watching Frank Simpson's back through the Vietnam War.

Brock Rumlow 
Mercenary.  Showman.  Goddamned Killer.
Killing.

Sample Post

San Francisco, California
9:48 PM, December 31st 1967

Timely.

I always tried to be timely.  The military drilled that in to me, but even before all of that it was something that mattered to me.  I learned early on you couldn't control it, there were too many variables, all you could do was try to be prepared when things shifted.  I wasn't ready when pneumonia took my mother.  I disappeared into comics, decided I would be an artist.  I wasn't ready when the war came to America.  God I was so skinny then.  I had no idea what I was getting in to.  None of us did.  We couldn't have.  I was timely though.

Couldn't have known how timely.  

"So," the grizzled old man across the bar locked eyes with me and interrupted from my reverie, "Tell me about your day?"

I was distracted, lost in more ways than one, looking back into a once familiar face.  Jesus Christ.

"It helps you know," Duggan said as he poured some good whiskey in an old glass and slid it over to me, "We don't talk."

"Irishmen?" I replied over my cup.

"Any of us.  You know how long it took me to get some of these fuckers to talk?  The shit don't come natural, after what we've seen, what we've done.  You don't want to remember, you don't want to put that on your brothers.  Don't want their sympathy, don't want their pity.  None of us do, but you said you'd talk Rogers.  It's New Years, it's what we do."

"I was never much for talking about the past.  About memories.  You know, all those years, it was action.  All movement, all action, just one thing after another.  Go, go, go."

"Yeah," my suddenly old buddy Dum Dum Duggan replied, with a loud unhealthy sounding exhale "I remember that, remember it better than most.  Maybe more than anyone left, but for some of us memories is all we got left.  Memories, this shit little bar, and now you Steve.  A long lost friend come back.  You owe it to us.  Your day."

"It's a hell of a thing."

Old Dum Dum looked back at me, 23 years older than when I had last seen him.  He had been a tank of a man, where had it all gone.  Years on years, and it had all been just a few weeks ago.  For me.  It was a hell of a thing.  How one day can change your world.

Captain America / Nuke
Frank Simpson, Age 25 (b. 1942)
Deployed in Vietnam
Active since approximately 1960

Character Concept

Frank Simpson has more in common with the Vietcong than with half of the men in this Army.  They're wild sometimes, howling at the moon.  They're wily sometimes with their foxholes and their punji pits.  Not like half of the sadsack fucks he gets sent out with.  Americans forced into service.  Forced into service.  Vietcong ain't forced into fucking shit.  These boys are out here fighting like goddam lions.  These Vietcong make for one hell of an enemy, it is almost a shame he has to kill them.  It is almost a shame he has to kill every last god damn Vietcong in Vietnam until the job is done and America is safe.  Hell someone has to do it don't they?  Who better?

This is Frank Simpson's war.  These are the enemy.  These are the battlefields.  It's a hell of a goddamned thing.  He calls himself Nuke, at least he used to.  Brass didn't like it.  Said it was problematic.  Doesn't matter.  He's going to end this war the same way the Nukes did.  He started calling himself Captain America.  Maybe the brass didn't like that either but goddam if the men didn't love it.  His men.  Oorah.  

My concept with this character is largely to contrast with the 1950s ethos, world view, and upbringing of Steve Rogers' Captain America.  Steve Rogers' Captain America has a very rose tinted nostalgic view of what America is, was, and will be.  Though that may change.  Frank Simpsons' Captain America has a much more jaded view on these things.  They have many stark differences and many similarities they are not aware of.

I want to explore how Frank Simpson sees things based on his upbringing and experiences both in life prior to Vietnam and in actually fighting in it.  He will have his own perspective on Steve Rogers' Captain America and vice versa, hopefully leading up to an eventual direct confrontation.  In regard to America's and Captain America's role in a war, role globally, and role in peacetime they will be largely diametrically opposed.  

Part of these differences are due to upbringing and experiences and part of it is due to maturity.  

Where Steve Rogers' Captain America is at his core a good man trying to do the right thing and protect all Americans Frank Simpsons' Captain America is a man who has been preparing for war all his life and is now in the thick of it.  I want Frank Simpsons' Captain America to be essentially the villain at least for awhile.  I haven't quite determined if he will be even partially redeemed, but I want him to be a villain with some positive characteristics rather than a caricature.  He will have some stances that are laudable, maybe even some things he is better with than Steve Rogers, but he is a troubled violent man.

I am not quite sure how or if we will address race, sex, and class issues in this, but Simpson will be essentially Animal Mother from FMJ in those regards.  From the end of the movie not the earlier bits.  He's a little crude, he's a bit of an ass.  He's not a racist.  He's a pig but not a sexist.  He's poor and resents the wealthy, particularly the pukes who have dodged the draft.

Arc 1 : Steve Rogers in San Francisco, trying to figure out who and what he is now.  Talking with Dum Dum Duggan and other veterans.  Learning about America in the 60s.  Frank Simpson in Vietnam, enjoying what he's doing and forming his own opinions about war.

Depending on what happens with events and connected characters I might change future Arcs but I'm thinking...

Arc 2 : Steve Rogers is getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. matters and past evils, learning about Frank Simpson, Vietnam, Civil Rights issues, Veterans in general and Communism.  Frank Simpson is more fully involved in Vietnam, becoming an independent actor in addition to his more traditional role.

Arc 3 : Steve Rogers is putting things together involving corruption and the legacy of WW2.  Frank Simpson is heading toward a clash with Steve Rogers. Trying to find out why.  

Key Notes

Name   : Frank Simpson
Alias  : Captain America, Nuke, Meo Hoang
Birth  : 1942, Texas
Mother : Deceased, Access by Special Request Only
Father : Deceased, Access by Special Request Only
Enlistment : 1960 

Sample Post

Vietnam
December 31st 1967

Yeah yeah yeah.  Yeah.  You heard right.  Vietnam is hot.  It's muggy.  It smells different.  It looks different.  That don't mean everything is different though.  People are still people and fuck yes New Years Eve is still New Years Eve.  

The last day of December 1967 and goddam if we weren't still riding high off Tam Quan.  This shit was what we here for.  This shit was one hundred percent the shit that I was here for.  Every single one of us who was here to be here had gotten some this December and after we got done getting some and we got back to what passes for civilization out here you know god damn well we got some.  If you weren't getting it from someone in your unit you were getting it somewhere.  All of it.  Sex, booze, smokes, weed, acid, speed, uppers, downers, zips, zooms, and whamwhams.

We'd just been walking the fences since then.  Baking in the sun.  Sharing stories and bodily fluids with each other.  Training together, talking shit together, playing cards together, listening to music together, killing time in the armpit of the world man, together.  There were so many of us, it was so goddamned hot, and we were all still so pepped up on Tam Quan.  That was where I met Betsy.  Fucking Betsy man.  Thinking about her gets me antsy again.  Ooo wee.

See December had jumped off quick.  Word came down in the tail end of November that Intelligence had heard the PAVN or Vietcong or LASV or some group was heading on down to Bong Son so we were ready.  We were itching.  PAVN, LASV, Vietcong, those are all just slight variations on enemy.  Sure enough in the first few days of December they headed down Highway 1 and started moving on our boys, that's ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam.  The good guys, second place anyway.  America is Number One and all that shit.  So that's how it started, the Battle of Tam Quan.

December 6th and they send the 9th Cav in to investigate.  They're pinned down quick so they call in the 8th Cav and they send me with 'em.  Goddamned Captain America shit here we go.  Hey bartender get me a beer yeah?  Whatever you got.  Yeah that's right I drink this shit.  It's beer man.  No.  Fuck no they ain't gonna poison me, I'm a regular customer and these are friendlies.  Plus I'm just too damn good.  Look at me.  Just look at me.

You know how we do it.  1725 Hours they tell us to go.  1800 Hours my feet hit the street and I've got a new dancing partner.  Helicopter crew was worried, they smelled it so they hooked me up with my girl.  Betsy.  You know where Betsy came from brother?  Goddamned General Electric.  No I'm not kidding.  General Electric.  This sweet piece of ass is a scaled down M61 Vulcan.  She can put out 4,000 a minute before she overheats.  That's more than your mom.  Goddamn, right?

So like I was saying.  1800 Hours we're landed, by 2100 we've got the 9th Cav on their way out and we're setting up perimeter.  Betsy wanted to dance.  You should really see us go.  We do a mean Mashed Potato.

What happened next?  Yeah, sure I'll tell yeah.  Let me just get a drink.  Long story.  Shit gets real you know?  You want one?  I got you, it's no problem.

Name: Danger, Danger Fontaine
Epithet: Masked and Mustachioed Macho...Guy
Age: 32
Height: 6'4" pounds of towering manliness
Weight: 246 pounds of raw hard muscle slathered in baby oil
Race: Human
Dominant Hand: Right

Weapons-
All of Danger's weapons are fashioned from cheap steel and are designed to break easily.  They are carted down to the ring in a shopping car.
-A Wooden Folding Table designed for little more than being broken in dramatic fashion.

-A Chinese folding metal chair initially designed for sitting but quite useful for bashing about the head.

-A wooden kendo stick

-A Stop Sign seemingly picked up off the street

-A single live and very confused Lobster

-A Black Duct-Taped Up Baseball Bat

Equipment-

The Man Known As Danger, Danger Fontaine, wears upon his person:
Urban Colored Camo Shorts

Black and White Gold's Gym Muscle Shirt

Black and White Wrestling Mask (trimmed back to allow his mustache freedom from the confines of his mask)

Wrestling Gloves

Wrestling Boots

Red Entrance Cape

Appearance- 

Danger, Danger Fontaine is a thickly muscled well tanned man and is never seen without an indulgent quantity of baby oil ensuring each and ever muscle fiber glistens under the stadium lights as does his perfectly manicured mustache.  His build is best described as mercilessly powerful and massively sexual.

Physical Abilities/Powers-
Physical Ability-
Danger, Danger Fontaine has inarguably perfected his craft.  He is truly the picture of perfection.  He is the image of intensity.  The epitome of excellence.  The physical manifestation of manliness.  And also a generous lover, if you know what I mean.  His grip is unbreakable, his strikes impeccable, his aerial game im...un...it's also pretty good.  

Powers-
Imagined Invulnerability -
Danger, Danger Fontaine can ignore injuries that would incapacitate neigh any other man.  Due to a combination of repeated traumatic concussions, pain killer use and abuse, and his massively inflated ego he can suffer great harm and continue on despite it.  He is either numb to the pain due to a combination of nerve damage and pain killer use or simply able to power through it due to his own overpowering sense of self confidence.  In short, while he is not actually in any way shape or form invulnerable to injury or damage he is fully capable of ignoring such damage until it becomes fundamentally physically incapacitating.

Supreme Arrogance - 
Danger, Danger Fontaine's massively inflated ego and additive brain damage due to regular traumatic head injury allows him to face adversaries that are clearly exponentially more powerful than he and believe he still has a very real chance of victory.  

Delusion - 
Arguably all of Danger, Danger Fontaine's power is a result of this aspect of his mind.  Despite what absurd circumstance he may find himself in and what inconceivable threat he may face, he will stalwartly believe that he is the Fan Favorite and that this is his shot at the big time.  He can hear the roaring crowd.  He can hear the commentators expounding over his miraculous musculature and marvelous mustache.

Unreasoning Rage -
Danger, Danger Fontaine's patina of professional wrestling professionalism fades into oblivion if his mask is removed or his mustache is mussed up.  Though he generally plays up for the adoring arena carefully watching his each and every match, when an opponent dares to remove his mask he loses his restraint entirely.  As a great man once said, he loses his smile.  Much of the posing and smiling fades away and he is left a raving animal, throwing out as many big moves as he can as quickly as he can, often to his eventual detriment.

Personality- 
Danger...Danger Fontaine.  A self obsessed obnoxiously narcissistic professional wrestler, his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness.  He is loud, because it is important that the millions and millions of fans, all slavering at the bit for just a little more Danger, hear each and every syllable of each and every word.  He is self aggrandizing because who knows Danger better than Danger himself?  He is light hearted and often cracks terrible terrible jokes, because he is THE MAN.  He is the top, the pinnacle, the apex, the peak, the asymptote, the azimuth, the hyperbole, he is the the man and the only way to be THE MAN is to beat THE MAN and the only man who can beat THE MAN is THE MAN, which is him, thus he is unbeatable.  Ask anyone, they'll tell you.  In the unlikely event he is one day beaten he is magnanimous in defeat because he knows, HE KNOWS, that belt is meant for one man and one man alone.  THE MAN, which is him, Danger, Danger Fontaine, aka THE MAN. The Macho...Guy.

Background- 
Danger, Danger Fontaine dreamed through all of his childhood of becoming a professional wrestler and eventually managed to make his dream come true.  Growing up in South Dakota he knew from a young age that he was destined for greatness and the greatest greatness he could envision was becoming a massive slab of tanned and oiled muscle body slamming other, lesser, tanned and oiled massive muscle slabs for the entertainment and adoration of the million and millions watching at home.  Happily fueled on by the antics of his wrestling idols, action movies, and neigh every book and training program advertised in the back of comic books, he grew muscleyier and muscleyier as his dream became an inevitable future.

He worked his way up through the indies gaining a reputation as an enormous ass, but an ass who put asses in seats.  Which is the best kind of ass.  Taking inspiration from his idols from America and the world abroad he fashioned for himself a number of easily recognized moves and a very recognizable physique.  Muscles, Muscles, Mask and Mustache.  In time he made his way to the premier federation of the United States and found great success.  As well as he did he faced many injuries and eventually ended up as too big of a liability to the company to remain.  This was likely a wise move as his massive ego led to him suffering many injuries that would have sidelined him if he weren't just such an egomaniac.  Finally one day his undeniable superiority, ceaseless impossibly hyperbolic bragging, and need to pay some bills brought him to Undisputed Pro Wrestling.

Edrick Manard

C H A R A C T E R   S U M M A R Y

Edrick's personality matches his appearance, which matches his reputation prior to joining the Phoenix Order.  A large, ugly, often meanspirited man, he has tempered these character defects somewhat as the hard process of his training proceeded.  At 31 he is getting a rather late start.  He may blame it on his Proletarian upbringing but it is really his own doing, and having grown up and lived among the people for 31 years and having often run in to trouble with the Crimson Eye no one is falling for that.

A P P E A R A N C E

Edrick is 6'1" with a muscular body built through years of helping his Blacksmith father in the only way he ever truly learned to; by doing the most basic backbreaking aspects of the work over and over again and with great enthusiasm.  His skin has darkened from long hours spent in the family shop and is marked here and there with small scars from his troublesome teenage years and his troublesome 20s.  His hair is cut short at the sides and longer on the top, with a rather ragged beard on his chin.  His most distinguishing feature is his nose, which healed poorly several times after being broken by one guard or another several times and generally for good cause.

P S Y C H O L O G Y

Edrick's personality has changed rather considerably during his time in the Phoenix Order.  He has not been able to completely shake his character flaws but finding a purpose and being held to a standard has change him.  He has always been impatient, hyperactive, and prone to making rash decisions without considering the potential consequences of his actions.  These flaws led him through a rather failed life prior to the Phoenix Order, but the training and punishment he received there tempered them.

E Q U I P M E N T

Heavy Plate
Shield
One Handed Mace
Simple Hide Shoulder Bag on his Back holding a bed roll, a large skin of water, a simple knife with a holster, and about as much dried meat as he could afford.

H I S T O R Y

Although his Father was a talented craftsman and a patient teacher Edrick had never really taken to the family business.  For long years his Father had made the finest of weapons and equipment for the Crimson Eye and Phoenix Order and for long years he had showed Edrick each step in detail, but it never seemed to stick for him.  On the rare occasion Edrick managed to pay attention to the long rather meticulous process he would come to the conclusion that he most certainly gives not a fuck about it.  Edrick never enjoyed the detail work that separated a serviceable piece of equipment from an expertly crafted work of art.  Edrick took more to the simple brute force aspects of it.  Pounding metal ingots flat, heating them, folding again, pounding again, and then when the work was done he would take his pay and fine something or someone new to pound in one fashion or another.

From his mid-teens through his twenties Edrick lived in this way earning himself quite a reputation for better or worse, and mostly for the worse.  Between drinking, fighting, and womanizing he found himself in trouble with the Crimson Eye on a fairly regular basis.  Due to his contribution to his Father's business and his Father's businesses contribution to Bastion they generally took it easy on him.  After a spirited beating he would generally be left with little worse than a broken nose.  In time many of the Crimson Eye came to know him, some thinking of him disdainfully as an untouchable waste, others hoping he might turn his life around if only to carry on his Father's legacy and stop disgracing his name.

Not paying much attention to his Father's yammering on as he got deeper into the process of repairing a Ranger's sword one day a 30 year old Edrick was thinking only of a saucy red haired woman he had seen walking the streets the morning.  She seemed to have a certain exotic look about her and Edrick intended to get a closer look at it.  Much closer.  Wondering to himself what he might say to her tonight he was caught by surprise, turning quickly in reaction to a startled scream from Father.  Thick smoke with a sheen to it had leapt up from the blade.  Across the shop their eyes met in horror, Edrick paused only a moment before beginning to walk toward his Father but it was long enough.

Crimson Eye in the market place had heard the shout and turned to see, and the Crimson Eye knew at once exactly what they had seen and exactly what it meant for the Blacksmith and his shop.  It had been his Father's poor luck that a bit of infected blood or flesh had been caught up in the metal.  Perhaps in the pitting about the pommel, perhaps in the filigree along the blade, whatever was caught and where it was caught as the blade heated up the flesh had flashed up and set it's vapors into the air.  Anyone in Bastion could tell you what must come next, it is inevitable.  As the Crimson Eye advanced toward the shop Edrick eyed his Father's hammer, but before he could move toward it he met the gaze of one of the Crimson Eyes.  If he reached for the weapon they would surely be upon him.  From there it all happened with an impossible speed.  A brief sad look from his Father as he wiped the infected blood and smoke from his face, some brief kind words from Crimson Eyes as they gathered about his Father, his Father dropping to his knees head held high and then only blood and fire.

Before the embers of his Father and his Shop had died down Edrick found himself in a cell awaiting inspection.  While he awaited judgement some of the Crimson Eye came to speak to him, from a safe distance.  They offered him a new Shop, steady work, if he could carry on his Father's work.  He could not.  Not even close.  The days after they left and before he was cleared were long, but then he was set to be released.  Released into a world he had no real place in, his only marketable skill his ability to perform the simplest most monotonous and back breaking of labor.  When his release came some of the Crimson Eye who had slain his Father and burned his home came to meet him and shine some light on his position.  They told him what he already knew, that he had no future, and then offered him a new hope. 

As a final gift to his Father they would offer Edrick one last shot at a life worth living or a death worth dying.  He would get no favors if he chose to try out for the Phoenix Order, but they would see to it that he got a foot in the door.  As it turned out that foot in the door was all Edrick needed.  His mistakes were corrected violently, they spoke to him in a language he understood.  His successes were met with more and harder work to do.  Years of hard work had hardened him enough that he had made it this far through his Aegis training.  He took some hard hits as the days wore on, but he dealt some pretty hard hits out himself.  It wasn't pretty, but neither was he.

Name: 
Don Bergeron

Age: 
37

Appearance:  
Stressed and Depressed.  
Bags under eyes.  
Sickly thin.  
Slow in movement.

Concept: 
Reluctant Detective, Compelled to Investigate, Losing His Grip On Reality

Powers/skills: 
Patience.
Stubborn determination.
Supplementation through alcohol, nicotine and junk food.  
Occasional otherworldly breakthroughs, sometimes brought on by primitive improvised rituals.

Things Your Character Wants to Happen (probably wont):
Sleep, Death, Peace, Answers, preferably not in that order.

Things You as a Writer Wants to Happen (Maybe will):
Some substantial victory followed by a new mystery to begin prodding at...or a slow descent into gibbering madness

C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T   P R O P O S A LD O N    B E R G E R O N

Image Credit : https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/rondo-hatton

   D E T E C T I V E   ♦   U N I T E D   S T A T E S   M I L I T A R Y,   R E T I R E D   
C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T:

"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

- H. P. Lovecraft

Don is a Private Detective working at times by simple contract and at times when he feels a certain pull toward one case or another.  Sometimes to one location or another.  Resisting this pull is futile.  It will infest his dreams.  Occupy his waking life.  Occasionally he will find himself in one place or another with little to no recollection of how he arrived there and a mystery unraveling before him.  He is struggling to hold it all together.

He represents himself as a Veteran.  United States Military, Retired.  Military Police.  This is mostly but not entirely accurate.  Enough of it is accurate to prevent him from coming into any trouble in regard to Stolen Valor.  He did serve and did serve in the places and at the times he claims to.  He did serve with honor.  He did serve as Military Police.  He did not, however, exactly retire.  If one were to look into his background one would discover various and lurid reports of odd behavior and disturbing statements followed by a healthy helping of psychological analyses.  These reports and analyses resulted in an Honorable Discharge and an extended period of regular mandatory appointments to assess and reassess his mental health.

P L O T ( S )   &   G O A L ( S ):
Don Bergeron is largely hostage to whatever it was precisely that happened to him in Iraq.  He is compelled to seek out mysteries and attempt to solve them.  Some of this compulsion is natural.  It is an extension of his time with the Military Police and his natural curiosity.  Some of this compulsion is unnatural.  There are times he would very much like to settle down in some pleasant little suburban city and dig about at whatever mundane mysteries these cookie cutter whitebread slices of society hold.  Perhaps work in construction or landscaping and earn his pay through good old fashioned simple manual labor, going to sleep exhausted every day but with a clear calm mind.

He needs to solve the mysteries he happens upon to sustain himself, but he also needs to find some manner of foundation to build upon.  He needs friends to lean on.  Some semblance of stability.  An anchor.  He would love to find out what exactly it was that he and Wachowski stumbled into and why only he made it out.  That would be grand, but mostly he just needs a way to quiet the voices pushing him from one strange mystery to another.  Other than booze, pills, sex and more booze, pills and sex.

C H A R A C T E R   N O T E S:
Tall and skinny.  Better described as lanky.
Deliberative in movement, at least when he is sober.
Laconic.  Choosy with his words.  A bit of a smart ass.
Bags have formed and found permanent residence under his eyes.
Despite his many shortcomings and general desire for an end to all the investigating he is relentless once he becomes involved in a mystery.  However much he may long for rest as things develop he cannot resist throwing himself harder and harder into the investigation.  Often to his own detriment.
He has developed his own, extremely primitive, rituals based on random readings and personal experience.  Most of them centering on things as simple as sense deprivation, mantras, and ingesting whatever hallucinogenic, dissociative or otherwise intoxicating substances he can get his hands on.

Sometimes, usually in the late hours of the night but sometimes just right smack dab in the middle of the day, Don wants little more than to escape thought.  No memories.  No fears.  No hopes.  No beliefs.  No curiosity.  Just vague mindless distraction.  The simplest and grandest of biological mechanisms. Neurochemical pathways lighting up like Manhattan when West Side Story comes back to Broadway.  Serotonin flowing.  Whatever gets him there.  How in the fuck did he get here.  Where did shit go wrong.

Doors locked.  Lights off.  Sweaty clothes and glasses off too.

Life had, for some time, lined up precisely the way he had expected it to.  According to plan.  He had worked hard at school.  He went to church.  He read the right books, he did his homework, he played sports, he said the right things at the right times.  He'd gotten along well enough with the teachers.  He had friends.  He dated a few girls before finding exactly the right woman.  He joined JROTC and worked hard at it.  He graduated.  He was a strong young man with a good head on his shoulders and a good woman beside him.  Married her.  Enlisted.  Made a son.  Turned out to be a daughter.  Shipped out.  Then it all fucking went to shit.

Plug in.  Warm water on.  Bluetooth on.  Playlist set to mild songs in languages he didn't understand and volume set to just hardly audible.

2004.  Iraq.  Military Police.  Split duties between soldier and police officer.  Great job.  Great purpose.  Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, except he didn't.  It was war.  That's a whole story.  It's a whole library of stories, but none of those stories are this one.

Most days were dead simple.  Sometimes had a briefing meeting, sometimes didn't.  Either way soon enough he was either in a car patrolling the grounds or doing the exact same thing but by foot.  Those were the officer days.  Other days were also dead simple but involved a lot more shooting and being shot at.  Those were the soldier days.  

Controlled breathing.  Irresponsible number of pills skittering across the tile next to the bathroom sink.  Gather them up.  Glass of whiskey grinding them to powder.  Powder joins the whiskey.

Soldier Day.  2005.  Operation Spear.  Looking for proof of foreign fighters pouring in from Syria.  Dangerous work.  Pushing through outskirts under heavy fire.  Calling in air strikes as we progressed.  Danger close.  Just another grunt with a gun.  One more warm body to throw into the gears of the war machine.  His squad was the Find Al-Zarqawi gear.  Finished up clearing the city with the Town Hall.  Four Iraqi hostages there.  Translator was no help, he'd been killed just minutes before.  Using grunt level Arabic they barely got across the concept of "Wait here, help on the way" and got a vague direction to go to maybe find Al-Zarqawi.  

If they had a better understanding of Arabic and it's dialects they might have understood that the frightened expressions and begging of the Iraqis waiting for rescue wasn't out of concern for their own safety but for that of Don and his men.  Brave men, they pushed on regardless.

Nerves kick in.  Sweating again.  Fingers drumming against thigh.  Controlled breathing.  Fingers stop drumming.  The chain-smoking portion of the ritual begins.  American Spirits.  Brown.  Harsh.  Organic.  Fitting name.

Outskirts opposite the Town Hall.  Shouldn't take long.  Still does.  Intel shows a small smattering of houses piled up atop each other and a small nondescript gathering building.  Likely a mosque.  They moved into that building some time ago.  Split up into small teams.  Dumb decision, but it was getting late and they wanted to clear the building and get back before dark.  Didn't want to get so close to catching him only to turn back from the verge of triumph.  Don had moved on with Wachowski.  They moved quickly, communicating through hand signals.  Occasionally point to decorations on the walls.  Unfamiliar designs.

Coughing a little.  Light-headed.  Tingly.  Controlled breathing.  Gradually clear mind.  Climb in the tub.  Drop in really.  Light-headed.  Gulp down now slightly foamy drink.  Controlled breathing.  Clear mind.  Controlled breathing.  Clear mind.

Clear left.  Clear right.  Empty room.  Weird decorations.  Clear left.  Clear right.  Empty room.  Candles.
Clear left.  Clear right.  Empty room.  Dead body.  What the fuck.  Radio malfunction.  Turn back.
Clear left.  Clear right.  Probably don't need to.  Just came from here.  Candle room.  Why are there no candles.  Turn back.  
Clear left.  Clear right.  No dead body.  Large wall engraving.  Rainforest scene.  Underground.  In Iraq.

Controlled breathing.  Clear mind.  Controlled breathing.  Clear mind.  Controlled breathing clear mind.

Controlled breathing clear mind controlled breathing clear mind controlled breathing clear mind

Rapid procession of disjointed memories.  Sequence seems correct but hard to tell.

Clear left.  Clear right.  Abhorrent tapestries.  Not Arabic.  Not Syrian.  Not Turkic.  Not Babylonian.  Not Greek.  Not Sumerian.  Not right.
Clear left.  Clear right.  T-Intersection.  Left is a straight drop of indeterminable depth.  Go right.
Clear left.  Clear right.  Woven mats.  Intricate chairs.  Bavarian maybe.  Germanic anyway.  Chairs occupied by casually posed burnt husks.
Clear left.  Silence.  Dirt floors.  Shattered bones.  Unplugged television displaying static.
Clear left.  Silence.  
Clear left!  Silence.  Shit.

Eventually the booze and pills and tobacco and breathing and indistinct but melodic sounds of a foreign tongue trigger something.

mind clear breathing control mind clear breathing control mind clear breathing control
rise suddenly out of tub, slightly foamy drink flows back into glass, coughing in reverse
sucking in clouds of smoke, smoke may or may not have faces, and putting them back in one cigarette after another, American Spirits
powder gathers to the center of drink, powder leaps back into hand, powder is scooped back onto tile counter, grinding glass over powder converts them into an irresponsibe number of pills, pills grow spider legs and skitter about the counter before leaping back into hand
clothes on lights on door unlocked walking backward through door and back into Iraq But Not Iraq

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BangoSkank Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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Bio

Things I Wrote

Someone suggested special powers as a writing prompt and someone else suggested the power for me.  So I had to write something about being the best breather ever.

I breathe better than anyone.  Catching my breath is not an issue for me as I never lose it.  I can swim underwater for a pretty long time compared to a normal man though my incredibly average musculature means I still can't really swim all that far without coming up for air.  Boy howdy though, when I do come up for air I don't bob in the water gasping and wheezing.  I take one deep full breath and I'm right back in the game.  The swimming game that is.  I can run for a pretty long time as well as each breath delivers plentiful oxygen into my body, but I still get tired fairly quickly do to lactic acid buildup and my general disdain for actually running.  I can probably yodel very well but I don't know how to yodel.  Ditto for playing saxophone or tuba.  I never hyperventilate so that is nice I guess, though I never had problems with hyperventilating in the first place so it's really kind of a toss up there.  Overall these powers are a slight increase to my quality of life but not much more than that really.  I can blow up a balloon like nobody's business though, so I've got that going for me.

Roald Cliffbloom - Ratling Trailblazer

In a ship full of strange Servitors and Squats and giant warrior women nothing ever seemed so strange to Roald as the sight of himself decked out in his dress uniform.  Every so often it was called for and every so often Roald put himself through the rigmarole of arranging everything just so.  Rogue Traders, this one in particular, had higher standards than some of the ruffians he had traveled with.  Sometimes he missed the laxer standards.

Most days his dress uniform lay waiting for the next time it would be carefully inspected, briefly worn, and then set away once more to await its next three to four hour tour of duty.  Ironed out with just enough starch.  Picked clean of any offending hair or metal brushing or deviant thread yearning for freedom.  Patches just precisely level and just precisely at this distance from one another.  Proportionally at least.  Ratlings only had so much space to work with.  Thankfully as a Ratling he hadn't much need to worry about the standards of Medals and Honors.  Having none.  

This careful arrangement was supposed to make everyone in the Imperial Guard look uniform.  Like one unit, one body expressing one purpose and one movement, His.

Roald looked like a fucking OD Green Orangutan Sausage.  A small one.

He marched through the ship to meet the others, passing the Servitors and giving them a distance slightly beyond respectful.  Who knew when or if one of them might decide he was slightly less Human an Abhuman today.  He made sure to bathe and deodorize and all of that, even so.

Arriving to greet the others he made a beeline for the other Abhuman and settled in, working out any remaining wrinkles in his uniform and cursing whoever it was who had clearly been in a hurry when they guesstimated how long the sleeves for a Ratlings dress shirt ought to be.

San Francisco, California
9:48 PM, December 31st 1967

Timely.

I always tried to be timely.  The military drilled that in to me, but even before all of that it was something that mattered to me.  I learned early on you couldn't control it, there were too many variables, all you could do was try to be prepared when things shifted.  I wasn't ready when pneumonia took my mother.  I disappeared into comics, decided I would be an artist.  I wasn't ready when the war came to America.  God I was so skinny then.  I had no idea what I was getting in to.  None of us did.  We couldn't have.  I was timely though.

My recruiter, when I got rejected for being underage and so damn skinny, he had a motivational poster taped up in that cheap little cubicle on the white turning yellow walls.  I can almost see it now.  A nature scene, for some reason.  I never got that.  I did get the message.  It put things into words better than I could.  It said that Luck was the Intersection of Preparation and Opportunity.  I like to think I've been prepared.  I like to think I've been timely.

You probably wouldn't believe how timely.  Or how lucky.  

"So then," the grizzled old man across the bar locked eyes with me and interrupted me from my reverie, "You gonna just keep staring at that mug or are you going to tell me about your day?"

I was distracted, lost in more ways than one, looking back into a once familiar face.  Jesus Christ.

"It helps you know," Duggan said as he poured some good whiskey in an old mug and slid it over to me, "We don't talk."

"Irishmen?" I replied over my mug.

"Oh absolutely lad.  Especially us Irish.  But any of us really.  You know how long it took me to get some of these fuckers to talk?  That shit it don't come natural, after what we've seen, what we've done.  You don't want to remember, you don't want to put that on your brothers.  Don't want their sympathy, don't want their pity.  None of us do, but you said you'd talk Rogers.  It's New Years, it's what we do."

"I was never much for talking about the past.  About memories.  You know, all those years, it was action.  All movement, all action, just one thing after another.  Go, go, go."

"Yeah," my suddenly old buddy Dum Dum Duggan replied, with a loud unhealthy sounding exhale "I remember that, remember it better than most.  Maybe more than anyone left, but for some of us memories is all we got left.  Memories, this shit little bar, and now you Steve.  A long lost friend come back.  You owe it to us.  That day, your day, our day."

"It's a hell of a thing."

Old Dum Dum looked back at me, 23 years older than when I had last seen him.  He had been a tank of a man, where had it all gone.  Years on years, and it had all been just a few weeks ago.  For me.  It was a hell of a thing.  How one day can change your world.

One Day

It was hard to breathe.  You couldn't catch the air.  Not here.  I was somewhere around 38,000 feet, moving at nearly 400 miles an hour, I was 26 years old, I was a soldier, I was Captain America, and I was scared to death.  It was April 14, 1945.  In Italy the US Fifth Army was launching it's final offensive in Italy, moving into the Po Valley.  High over the North Atlantic my pilot and I were dying and we knew it.  It was happening again.  

My pilot was 23 years old, from Irvine California, he was allergic to grapes and engaged to the daughter of an architect.  Her name was Maggie McMurray, his name was Adam Koslik.  We called him Tight Pants because he showed up on Day One in pants that had shrunk in the wash.  His pants were tight.  He was Jewish, she was an atheist.  She was pregnant with a son, Michael after his Uncle.  They wanted to keep it quiet until after the wedding to avoid the shame.  They wanted a sister for Michael, Evangeline for her grandmother.  Probably would have been invited to the bar-mitzvah and bat-mitzvah.  He was shot once in the left lung and once through the right shoulder.  The plane was smoking, jittering.  We were at 27,000 feet now and still coming in right about 400 miles an hour.  Still hard to breathe.

Hard to catch the air when you're going that fast.  Hard to breathe when every breath hurts.  Hard to control the yoke with a bullet in your shoulder and blood filling your lungs but it wouldn't have mattered anyway.  We were both young men, we were both about to die, and there was nothing anyone was going to be able to do to save us.  I was losing another friend, another brother.  Bucky had been lost over the English Channel only a few months ago.  I had never really processed that and now Tight Pants, and me with him.  It was happening again.

We said the Lord's Prayer together through shuddering breaths as the instrument panel lit up and screeched meaningless warnings to us, I placed my hand on his shoulder, and a moment later the shaking intensified as the plane began to fall apart and we were lost to the skies and the frigid seas.  

When I look back now those few minutes with Tight Pants took longer than the next 23 years.  I could tell you all kinds of things about the cockpit of that fighter in those few minutes.  

Tight Pant's shampoo smelled like apples.  His deodorant smelled like that terrible chemically standard issue deodorant because that is exactly what it was.  I had a rock in my boot.  I still had a blown out blood vessel in my left arm from working out on base.  That photo of his wife and him in San Francisco had come untaped and got sucked out the window.  A piece of bread launched up from the floor as Tight Pants fought valiantly to save us.  Muttering to pull through the pain and it would have had to hurt something fierce with that hole in his shoulder.  Tight Pants had been eating in here.  Wasn't supposed to.  Probably wanted to eat with Maggie.  I would have to reprimand him some other time.

All I could tell you about my experiences the last twenty years is that it was cold.  Probably.

I woke up on a Japanese ship, the Ishii.  I was under enemy control, they had put some serious research into what freezing conditions do to a human body.  How to bring them back.  It had been 23 years.  They weren't the enemy anymore.  They did their best for us.  Their best wasn't enough to save Adam Koslik.  That might have been because he had been hit twice by bullets that had somehow missed me.  It might have been because of what Operation Rebirth had done to me.  We had been dead for 23 years.  We had been dead as long as Tight Pants had been alive and he still was.  Adam was still dead.  Bucky was still dead.  Not me, not old Blondie.  I was reborn.  Again.  Tight Pants and I, we had been found, but I would come to find I was still very much lost.  

San Francisco, California
10:18 PM, December 31st 1967

"You said Adam Kauslic?"

"Yeah," I replied pressing my fingertips into my temples.  

Dum Dum pulled out a notebook and started scribbling.

"You said..."

"Adam Koslik, K-O-S-L-I-K, Tight Pants from Irvine.  He was 23 years old.  Engaged to Maggie McMurray, son on the way, Michael."

I took another drink.  I needed it, and as I turned to Dum Dum to ask about all this I found him already pouring more into my mug and he started speaking.

"This woman, her husband is missing in action in Vietnam.  Commander Hoff.  We're doing a thing.  Well she's doing it and I'm aiming to help.  Take a look at that mug."

It had a small black and white flag.  Said POW MIA in a banner above a bowed head.

"That's going to be big for the family.  What about the body?"

I told him the body had been sent back with me.  Tight Pants and I had taken one last flight together.  He was back in America, should be on the way home by now.  He told me how much this was going to help.  How it would bring closure.

I downed the mug.

"Survivor's guilt." He said, pouring into my mug once more but not quite so full.

"It's different.  I'm different."

"No," he replied surprisingly forcefully, "No you aren't Steve.  Not in this."

"Sure I am.  You were one of the few who could keep up with me Dum Dum.  They-"

"I know what they did Steven.  That doesn't have shit to do with this."

I tried to respond again.  It was different.  Luck.  Timeliness.  Preferential treatment.  I was Captain America.  When I tried to protest more he interrupted me.

"That's survivor's guilt Rogers.  That is what. it. is.  Everyone has got reasons they think it's different for them.  We all got something we feel guilty for.  Someone we feel guilty about.  We're survivors.  Survivor's guilt."

I looked around.  Got about half nods and half folks hiding their faces.  I turned back.

"No Steve, take a good hard look."

I did.  I was younger than most of them.  I was in much better shape than most of them.  I was intact.  I was alive.  Unscarred.

"We're The Leftovers Rogers," he said while I looked.

"You're a Leftover too." he said.  Then he told me how he became a Leftover.

Vietnam
December 31st 1967

Yeah yeah yeah.  Yeah.  You heard right.  Vietnam is hot.  It's muggy.  It smells different.  It looks different.  That don't mean everything is different though.  People are still people and fuck yes New Years Eve is still New Years Eve.  

The last day of December 1967 and goddam if we weren't still riding high off Tam Quan.  This shit was what we here for.  This shit was one hundred percent the shit that I was here for.  Every single one of us who was here to be here had gotten some this December and after we got done getting some and we got back to what passes for civilization out here you know god damn well we got some.  If you weren't getting it from someone in your unit you were getting it somewhere.  All of it.  Sex, booze, smokes, weed, acid, speed, uppers, downers, zips, zooms, and whamwhams.

We'd just been walking the fences since then.  Baking in the sun.  Sharing stories and bodily fluids with each other.  Training together, talking shit together, playing cards together, listening to music together, killing time in the armpit of the world man, together.  There were so many of us, it was so goddamned hot, and we were all still so pepped up on Tam Quan.  That was where I met Betsy.  Fucking Betsy man.  Thinking about her gets me antsy again.  Ooo wee.

See December had jumped off quick.  Word came down in the tail end of November that Intelligence had heard the PAVN or Vietcong or LASV or some group was heading on down to Bong Son so we were ready.  We were itching.  PAVN, LASV, Vietcong, those are all just slight variations on enemy.  Sure enough in the first few days of December they headed down Highway 1 and started moving on our boys, that's ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam.  The good guys, second place anyway.  America is Number One and all that shit.  So that's how it started, the Battle of Tam Quan.

December 6th and they send the 9th Cav in to investigate.  They're pinned down quick so they call in the 8th Cav and they send me with 'em.  Goddamned Captain America shit here we go.  Hey bartender get me a beer yeah?  Whatever you got.  Yeah that's right I drink this shit.  It's beer man.  No.  Fuck no they ain't gonna poison me, I'm a regular customer and these are friendlies.  Plus I'm just too damn good.  Look at me.  Just look at me.

You know how we do it.  1725 Hours they tell us to go.  1800 Hours my feet hit the street and I've got a new dancing partner.  Helicopter crew was worried, they smelled it so they hooked me up with my girl.  Betsy.  You know where Betsy came from brother?  Goddamned General Electric.  No, I'm not kidding.  General Electric.  This sweet piece of ass is a scaled down M61 Vulcan.  She can put out 4,000 a minute before she overheats.  That's more than your mom.  Goddamn, right?  

So like I was saying.  1800 Hours we're landed, by 2100 we've got the 9th Cav on their way out and we're setting up perimeter.  Betsy wanted to dance.  You should really see us go.  We do a mean Mashed Potato.

What happened next?  Yeah, sure I'll tell yeah.  Let me just get a drink.  Long story.  Shit gets real you know?  You want one?  I got you, it's no problem.

Tam Quan, Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam
December 1967

We just about always came onto the scene the same way.  Hot, fast, and spitting lead with a fury that spirit of vengeance those preachers are so fond of might find familiar.  Not everyone is in it.  They never are.  Enough folk have second thoughts, enough don't really want to be there.  Me and my boys were right where we wanted to be.  I was right where I was made to be.  My element.

My assistant gunner wasn't much of a killer.  Isaiah Green.  Maybe Greene with an E, I never did see it spelled out.  He wasn't any good behind a barrel but he was goddamned fearless.  Shouldn't have been here, got into a whole pile of shit for dating the wrong white woman and didn't let those sons of bitches just beat him to death.  Got his pick between life behind bars and death out in the jungles of fucking Vietnam.  He was good people.  He painted my face up right every morning and he kept Betsy dancing all through the night.  He shouldn't have been here but thank fuck he was.  Kept me from getting myself into too much trouble when I was feeling myself a little too much.

And god damn if I wasn't feeling myself that day.  Bare feet hanging out the chopper, and I was just looking for a target, someone that wanted shooting.  Sometimes the pickings were slim and these were definitely some slim pickings.  Made our job easier but a lot less fun.  No one for me to shoot, no need for Isaiah to keep my belt fed, just a quick landing and we all met up with the 50th Infantry and piled into their ACAV armored carrier.  Took us straight into Tam Quan no fuss no muss.  They come in from LZ English and took us all the way in.  By 2100 Hours we had the 9th Cav on their way out and we were setting in for the fun to come.  Night Perimeter.  Whole lot of nothing.  Hair trigger tension.  Sweat beading out and trickling down your face.  Bugs eating you up.  Just watching the seconds tick and waiting for the shit to kick.  Shit never did kick, not all night. 

Morning start up and I smelled it.  Fuck if I know what it smells like but you do the right time and you can smell it.  No mistaking it.  Not ever.  It was coming and when shit like that come you gotta be ready or you'll be dead.  Gotta take inventory of who you got and what you got.  Gotta be able to judge a man.  I'm a goddam killer and no doubt about it.  Isaiah wasn't no killer.  His business never was killing, but he got down to anything else with a fear of nothing but God.  Rumlow was solid too.  Killer just like me except he was pay for play, wasn't in no ones service but his own.  Damn good though, good man to have on your side and a horrible man to have for an enemy.  Most of the other men I knew by face and reputation.  Not much sense in learning names at the rate we were dropping.  

Sat there with Isaiah talking shit out.  Man had a keen mind.  We did that more often than not.  I knew one side of it, the killing.  Isaiah had a sharp mind for all the other shit.  The shit that meant me and mine could keep on killing without getting killed our damn selves.  Vehicle positioning, traps, assignments, that was mostly his doing.  Lead where you can right but know your limits.  While he was going over all that I finished my preparations.  Cheap shit MRE, watery mashed potatoes.  Helped them out with a Red.  Broke it apart and mixed the innards in with the potatoes.  Isaiah kept talking and time kept on ticking.  Threw another Red in there.  I smelled it.  The boys would be busy soon enough.

Most of them weren't killers but you didn't have to be a killer to be a soldier.  You had to follow orders or at least try to.  In Vietnam a lot of men died trying.  Lot of men decided not to try and a lot of them we saw sure to dying.  Wasn't nice.  War never was.  By the time we got clear to Tam Quan we'd cut most of the fat.

Lean meat.  All around the perimeter.  I'm talking prime beef.  Betsy front and center behind a couple of barrels.  Dancing shoes strapped tight.  Vehicles positioned up front for cover and early detection.  Traps laid.  Bright eyed and bushy tailed.  The best of America just waiting for what every one of us knew was coming, and then it did.

0725 that morning they hit the vehicles hard.  Blew the Jeep apart and tore up the ACAV pretty decent.  Poured a shit ton of artillery fire in too.  Too far away to be accurate and we were dug in well.  Only suffered one casualty.  Youngster got his with a bolt from the Jeep, pulped his head.  Quick death.  No pain.

From there it was all action.  Reinforcements got flown in.  More men, more weapons.  ARVN, 40th Regiment.  We reformed the perimeter and then me and my boys set out to get some.  Sent Rumlow out to the East, where they was coming from, to rustle some shit up.  Flamethrowers, grenade launchers, our last Armored Personnel Carrier, half diversion half retribution.  They pushed hard.  That Rumlow was a hard son of a bitch.  Pushed hard East, got around those bastards and pushed them back.  Back to us.

I always liked to keep shit simple.  Direct.  Lethal.

Colt Commander .45, my M60, my KA-BAR, a few grenades.  That was my standard issue.  8 round magazines for the pistol.  Belts for the M60.  She was a hungry bitch too, ate them belts up fast.  Gas operated, short stroke, open bolt, more than 500 rounds per minute.  That was my kit.  Sometimes I took some extra goodies, but I kept it simple today.  Simple is good, simple is predictable.  

Rumlow did things different and today, with Betsy, it all worked out just fine.  Just fine.

That day and the days that would follow, the Battle of Tam Quan.  That's Vietnam in a nutshell brother.

Us and the ARVN holding the line.  A bunch of American boys in the middle of Vietnam standing beside a bunch of Vietnamese boys while another bunch of Vietnamese boys come at us.  Screaming bloody murder, opening fire, running out of the tree line.  My brothers firing on them.  Their brothers firing on us.  Blood.  Fire.  Smoke.  Oil.  Clouds of CS coming out from behind them, flushing the Vietcong out.  That would be Rumlow's work.  The gas and the fire.  Chaos on chaos.  Can't hardly hear a thing over the shots.  Can't hardly see a thing over the flames and the smoke.  Just shapes running at you pointing sparking sticks at you, and then they're gone.  

It's a nightmare.  It's a dream.  And there I am.  Flag paint mostly washed off ages ago from the sweat and the heat but I got a new paint.  My own paint, got opened up a bit at some point.  Didn't even notice it.  Was a bit busy.  I notice it now in this one instant.  This postcard memory of Tam Quan.

I'm standing there in the middle of it.  Fucking rooted.  Blood leaking from my head, trickling down my chest.  The heat of flames drying it out, dancing on my skin.  The sight of the smoke.  The sounds of our guns and occasionally the sound of one of their rounds zipping past our heads.  Betsy dancing in my hands, Isaiah keeping her fed.  The smell of coppery blood, oil, and the lavender scent of the gas Rumlow was using to flush the enemy out.  If I hadn't been so hopped up I might be running too.  

Probably not though.  Would have missed out on this.  Couldn't do that.  Not ever.  Can't forget it.  Not ever.  Couldn't tell you what day I took that little mental snapshot.  Some time between December 6th and the 9th.  That's Vietnam baby.  It all bleeds into one.

San Francisco, California
10:24 PM, December 31st 1967

Dum Dum and I, we went way back.  We fought together through some of the most substantial battles of that war, recorded, not recorded, and top secret.  Two Irish boys, me from Brooklyn and him from Boston, going through horrors no man should have to face.  Horrors that never should have been.  We know each other's stories well.  We are bonded in sweat and blood, triumph and tribulation.  Nick Fury, Howling Commandos, French Resistance, the Red Skull.  He was my brother and I was his.

In my hubris I believed I knew his story.  What more could he tell me.  I was there for so much.  The years we had spent together, the adventures we had had.  I imagined the day that changed his life was the day he met me.

"You probably figure the day I met you was the day for me, the one day."

He was right, I sure had.

"Sure Rogers, that was a big day for me but I was already on a course long before then.  Already knew Fury, already Second in Command of the Howling Commandos.  Already fought with the Dirty Dozen, before you ever did.  Our meeting, it wasn't some grand revelation for me.  It didn't change the way I viewed the world.  I was already riding hard, but man when you came into the equation I turned it up to eleven.  We turned it up to eleven, all through the war.  Now shaddap Rogers, this is my story."

We had.  We sure had.  And I did, I sure did.    

"For a long time I thought that that would be the day for me Rogers.  I was fine with it.  We pushed each other to be better men, pushed each other to the very limit.  We set a hard pace and we held it steady.  So yeah, that was an important day.  The day we lost you Steve, that was another day that changed my life, but it still wasn't THE day.  Not my day."

After I was gone he had stayed in the fight.  Having faced the horrors of World War Two he took up the mantle once more when his country asked.  Went to Korea.  Fought a whole war there while I was frozen in the North Atlantic.  Reunited the Howling Commandos with Nick Fury.  Led them all through it.   That took up most of the 1950s, then in '59 he formed a team.  Pulled them from all over the world.  Madripoor, Paris, the Emerald Coast, and right back in his backyard, in Boston.  They were a team of superhumans, he said.  They weren't all exactly what we might call heroes today.  Dangerous men, but they answered the call and they were led by the super-est human I know.

"We fought Red Skull again and we killed him.  One of my men, Victor Creed, wasn't exactly the most put together but they were difficult times, Creed cut his head off and as evil as he was that really ought to do it.  Red Skull, he was trying to remake you.  Was trying to make an army of Super Soldiers.  He had a sample of the Serum, but we picked it up off his corpse."

He and his team protected General Hill from an assassination attempt.  They rescued Black Panther from a resurgent group of Nazis who still hadn't accepted their defeat.  In the beginning of this decade he and Fury had taken steps to forging a lasting peace.  The real dream.  They had called it The Great Wheel.  It had broken, but what a beautiful dream.  He had helped Fury form S.H.I.E.L.D. and continued to work with them as an operative.  A year after the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. he had been grievously wounded by a ricocheted bullet.

"I should have died Rogers.  I was dying.  My body wasn't strong enough to pull me through my injuries or keep me kicking after the surgery."

I had a hard time believing that.  When was Dum Dum ever not strong enough.

"That was my one day Rogers.  The day I wasn't strong enough.  They pulled the bullet out, had the best doctors available working on me and my heart gave out.  Doctors said it was a miracle I'd lived that long.  That I hadn't had a massive coronary getting up one morning or walking up some stairs.  They told me my odds and they weren't good.  Last rites.  Whole nine yards.  Fury came to visit, so did a few of the Commandos.  Our old pal Liberty Belle, she came by to represent the All-Star Squadron.  Hell T'Chaka came by to send me off.  Good to see him again, never thought I would."

I sat there, probably slack jawed.  He didn't look like I remembered him.  He'd lost a lot of weight and gained some wrinkles, I could believe 20 years had passed easily enough, but this was hard to believe.  Maybe I just didn't want to.  He had always been one of the strongest men I ever served with.  A tough, brave, bear of a man.  It was hard to hear I had almost missed seeing him again.  I tapped my finger on the bar, couldn't think of what to say to that.

"Fury gave me something called the Infinity Formula that's supposed to help it.  Slows aging, helps me stick around.  I'm not going anywhere just yet but it's not going to undo the damage.  I nearly killed myself trying to keep with you all those years Rogers.  Nearly killed myself trying to keep that same pace after you were gone.  I didn't want to sully our Legacy."

I never had much of a poker face, not with my men at least.  I guess he saw what I was thinking straight away.  

"Don't get me wrong now, those were the best days of my life.  I'm proud of what we did.  I'm damn proud.  I don't regret those days with you and I never will but I found a new way.  You're already a leader Rogers, you can't not be, it's not in you, but I want you to embrace it.  There are new wars, we were soldiers and we were damn good at it, but it's time for us to transition."

I didn't quite protest.  Dum Dum was a brother and it was clear he felt passionately about this.  But I wasn't ready to hear it either.  

"I didn't tell you about my day and expect you to make a decision today.  There is still so much you don't know.  We have twenty years of history to catch up on.  We have wars, Presidents, movements, government operations, a lot has happened since we lost you.  A lot of stuff that will be hard to hear.  The end of the war was complicated.  The years since haven't gotten any more simple.  You and I will have to talk about a lot in the coming days, certainly about that ship that found you.  The Ishii, that might be some serious trouble Steve."

He reached under his desk and pulled out a box then pushed it across the bar toward me.

"I wanted to hear your story and I wanted you to hear mine.  It's been amazing to see you again.  1968 is going to be a hell of a year.  With all that's ahead I wanted to give you something to help keep you rooted to the past.  Fury helped me out, they cleared out your place after you disappeared, but we held on to some of it.  Open the box."

He poured me another drink and pointed toward the box.  I shook my head, drank it down and opened the box up.  It was a lot to take in.  His story, his state, and the box.

"I know there isn't much in it.  They took most of your stuff for museums.  Everyone wanted a piece.  Captain America memorabilia, hell there is still a big market for it.  I tried to grab the most important stuff.  The most Steve Rogers-y stuff.  They didn't want to let me take the baseball but I don't think they had the stones to tell me no."

"No," I said in response, "This is great Dum Dum.  This is amazing."

It wouldn't look like much to much of anyone else.  An old baseball.  An old picture.  An old sketchbook.  

If you were a baseball fan you would probably recognize my ball and you might just take off with it.  Made sense it would be what folks tried to keep.  Signed by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.  Babe Ruth, The Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat.  Yankee.  Over 700 home runs.  .690 batting slugging average.  1.164 on-base plus slugging.  The greatest that ever lived.  I would come to find out later he no longer did.  Lou Gehrig, The Iron Horse, renowned for his durability.  Yankee.  All-Star seven consecutive times, Triple Crown winner, American League MVP twice, a member of six World Series Championship teams.  Passed away at just thirty seven from a disease they would name after him.  First player to have his uniform number retired by a team.  It was just an old baseball but it was my old baseball.

A picture with me, out of my Captain America uniform, and Bucky.  Just two soldiers in World War Two posing beside a plane.  Me being me, Bucky being him, no airs, standing next to the plane he was in when he disappeared from the world forever.  It had been the last time I ever saw him.  Through all the war we had come together and parted and come together again.  I never thought that cycle was going to change until it did.

My sketchpad and some art supplies.  It was a fresh pad, just one drawing on the first page and not even finished.  A recreation.  Taped to the page was an old picture of a smiling woman.  My mother.  The drawing wasn't even halfway finished, I had been taking my time.

"I got one more thing for you.  Technically it's still in deep storage somewhere.  Officially it's still in deep storage somewhere."

My shield.  My old original shield, triangular.  Three stars horizontal across the top and nine stripes vertical down it's length.  Had barely seen this thing since T'Chaka gave me the circular one I always carried.

"It's almost New Years Steve, I want you to enjoy it.  I've got one more thing I want to say to you and then I want you to mix in.  We've all seen a lot, we've all got stories."

It was a lot to take in, but I was going to try.  

"You're more than just a fighter Rogers.  I've led men who wanted nothing but a battle, I've known men who were nothing more than fighters, that isn't you.  You're a defender, you're a leader.  The world didn't love you just because you killed Nazis.  Killing something repugnant, even the Nazis, that alone isn't enough to generate love, not real love.  They loved you because you defended their brothers, their husbands and their sons.  You're a defender, a beacon, a leader, like it or not.  You're a symbol of America Steven, it's up to you what that symbol means."

We shared a drink after that.  It was kind of hard to pick up a conversation after something like that and he really did want me to talk with the others.  Dum Dum had given me a lot to think about and he gave me a little more to get me moving.  He gave me a smile and a nod and a light push on the shoulder to spin my stool around, urging me to get out there and talk to the others.  I guess that was it, that was my christening.  World War Two was over and had been for decades.  New wars had been fought, newer wars were being fought.  Dugan was right, I was a Leftover now, we all were.  Couldn't ask for better company.

Classified
(IP Logged - Contact Administrator)

Two voices on the line, two different sides of the country.

"He just left with the box, met a few of my guys and he seems ok, he's trying [*buzzing noise*].  He's definitely trying."
"What does he know?"
"Doesn't seem like he knows much, been in the ice and all, but one thing, we have to look in to one thing.  And I mean right now.  We talked a little, about coming back.  The ship that picked him up out of the drink, it was the Ishii.  They had him [*buzzing noise*]."
"Fuck."
"Yeah."
"Did he know the significance?"
"No, didn't seem like he did.  But-"
"Yeah.  I know."
"He's not ready for this shit [*buzzing noise*].  It's a different world, it's so goddamned different from what we knew and he-"
"Don't tell him shit."
"I don't like it.  I don't like keeping secrets from him.  He deserves better than that."
"Deserve doesn't have shit to do with it."
"He's going to start asking questions.  [*buzzing noise*] isn't the type to just go along, you know that, and I can't lie to him.  Not to him."
"We will deal with that when we come to it."
"Listen, I can't lie to him.  I can decide not to tell him things, to protect him I can do that, but I can't lie to him."

The line went silent for a moment.

"[*buzzing noise*] is an idealist in a less than ideal world.  We don't deal with the world as we would like it to be, we deal with what we have.  What we have right now is a big shit sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite.  You tell him there is work to be done.  A soldier's work.  There's a place here for him still, but if he starts digging too fast."
"What?  What if he does?"
"We will deal with that when we come to it, if we come to it.  For now we manage him.  Surface answers.  Let him figure things out organically, slowly.  We control the pace."

San Francisco, California
January 1st 1968

I walked back to my apartment a little over an hour into the year.  It had been good for me.  We shared some stories, shared a beer.  I wore my Captain America Smile.  It's always strange to me to hear how similar but how different our experiences were.  Stranger still to hear how people perceived me, mostly still do.  Those feelings, the way people imagine Captain America to be, have only grown stronger in these last decades.

It's like I died 20 years ago, yet some version of me became immortal.

There was Captain America and there was Steven Rogers.  Captain America was a propaganda poster, a figment, a smiling face, and Steven Rogers was a young man in the 1940s who dreamed of being a cartoonist and ended up a soldier.  Both of them were dead but I was still around.  Twenty Five years old in 1968.  Built like a brick shit house, pardon my French, walking through the streets of San Francisco on New Years Eve feeling sorry for myself and feeling guilty for feeling sorry for myself when so many of my brothers were dead.

I ran through a list of names as I walked.  Not knowing where to go or what to do.  That list grows so long.  I knew it was longer than I realized.  Common sense told me it had grown considerably longer while I was a popsicle.  I felt tears running down my cheeks, but slowly and sparsely, stubborn.  I fought them back but it was a losing fight.  I was a mess.  Survivor's guilt, maybe, but naming it didn't change anything.  Dum Dum helped, I knew I wasn't alone.  I knew I had a purpose, or at least there was a purpose Dum Dum envisioned for me, but I felt this great pressure pushing down on me.  

Dum Dum he wanted me out there, wanted me building a new life, leading the future.  All I wanted was to sleep.  I knew it then but would never admit it, I wanted to return to the ice.  To where Bucky was smiling that goofy smile, Peggy was shooting me those eyes of hers, Dum Dum was right there at my side backing my every play.  All my other brothers, we were young and we were doing the right thing.  The life of Steve Rogers instead of whoever the fuck I was now.  

I kept walking, I made it back home, and I climbed in to bed.  I'd won the war tonight.  I was still kicking.  Tomorrow would be another battle.  At least I had my shield back.

Blackcoats

A crusty old man with a sly smile greets you as you amble toward a campsite set far on the outskirts of town.

Howdy feller.  Don't think I recognize you.  Might be you don't really want to be 'round these parts tonight, but I won't chase you off no how.  We havin a bit of a get together and folks here aint all as nice as me.  Still aint gonna chase you off just the same.  Been sitting too long already and these legs don't carry me round like they used to.  Damn knees pop like a campfire sparking up if I ask em to do too much and you should see my bunions.  Second thought maybe better ya didn't.

Ok, alright.  You wanna stay you can stay.  I ain't gonna hurt ya.  Not unless you mind havin your ear talked offa ya.  I'm a bit of a blabber mouth ya see.  You new in town?  That's alright, don't gotta answer.  I'm just talkin out loud.  Blabber mouth you member.  Must be.  New in town I mean.  I know just about ever one round here and you I don't know.  Lemme tell ya a bit.

The days stretch on out here as the summer months come on in.  Prolly knew that already.  You work under that oppressive sun and even the whitest of collars become drenched in sweat by days end.  Folk come staggering in half the time plum wore out from the heat.  Done sweat all their water out so their face is dry but you can tell just fine by those salt stains ringing they necks and arms that they had just about enough.  You be careful bout that you stick around ya hear?  We drug more'n a few folk in to the Doc had spent too long out in the heat and lost their druthers.  Some of em aint never found em again neither. 

Anyway with work done that's when we all get on to doing what we do to make it all worth it, least if we can.  Pay for your food, pay for your lodgings, if you're smart you squirrel a little away for a rainy day.  Wouldn't be here if you were smart though now would ya?  It's damn near to desert out here.  Not a lot of rain.  Most folk say damn it all to hell and send that money to the barman.  Get themselves a bit of whiskey or maybe go to the back room for refreshment of a different sort.  You do what ya want now.  I ain't exactly one to judge.  All sorts of sins going on out here on the frontier.

You hang around those sorts long enough you hear all manner of stories.  That's sort of where I come in you see.  The stories.  I come to make my living off them, sure did take awhile though.  Some them are tall tales now, some them are the sort of tall tale ever body know is a tall tale.  Some them is the sort that folk want to believe in.  Some them is the sort folk don't want to believe in but still can't help themselves.  Most of em I can't rightly tell you if they're true or false.  Whose to say right?

Union boy say this.  Rebel boy say that.  Sometimes them boys get to arguing, more often they get to shooting.  Which one was telling the truth hell if I know, but story that gets spread round is usually the story the boy who don't go in the ground tell.  We get plenty other fights too of course.  Card cheats, freakshow refunds, lovers quarrels, gunfighters wantin to show they're the real McCoy.  Indians from one tribe or another not happy with each other.  Sometimes they're not happy with us.  Sometimes they're right not to be.  They all got stories you know?  I gots a real good memory and I tell them on.  Keeps me belly full.

He points at his belly, which is indeed rather prodigious, and continues on to talk to you about this and that as the last bits of daylight fade and the night approaches.  As it grows dark a rather diverse group saunters over to the campfire, many giving you suspicious glances and glares, and makes themselves comfortable.  The man produces some meat and skewers and the others do likewise, they then begin to chat as they prepare their dinners.

This feller just got into town now, just in time for tonight's story.  Lucky feller innit he?

There is a bit of grumbling from the others, but most seem more interested in their food and the story to come than in you.

You can have some of mine stranger.  Truth be told I aint got much of an appetite no more.  Figure I keep on eating much as I do more out of habit than hunger.  That an' I ain't exactly ready to walk cross that crossroads them preachers talk about and see whats waitin' fer me.  You unnerstan.

There is a more appreciative grumble from the others.  Similar mindset perhaps.  

After a few more minutes most of them have cooked their meager dinners, seemingly waiting for the story to start before they eat.  The man offers you about half of his simple dinner of meat, then takes a bite of the stringy fare for himself and begins his speech.  The others indeed take this as their cue to begin eating.

Alright now fellers.  We mostly know each other, new feller aside, and you all done told me your stories.  Know who I am, heard plenty of stories before.  I been doing this for a minute.  Met Union boys, met Union deserters.  Met Rebel boys, met Rebel deserters.  Met boys hunting one or the other group.  Met boys hunting boys hunting one or the other group.  Met slavers, met slaver hunters, met slaver hunter hunters, prolly met slaver hunter hunter hunters but this gettin ridiculous now.  I met just about all the tribes at one time or another and heard their stories about the tribes they were at war with or the states they were at war with and every once in a while I even met one who had only known peace.  Imagine that, folk who had never known war.  

You might not know this now new feller but this here a town with all kind of history.  Some of it real dark.  Lot of bodies.  Lot of murdering, lot of robbing, lot of bad business a gentleman don't talk about.  I talk about all of it a course.  Take a look at me, I ain't no gentleman.  Sorry to tell ya new feller but I ain't exactly walking on water myself.  I trys to keep it on the straight and narrow but I know sin.  All of us do.  I figure probably you do too.  Figure I'll find out soon enough anyhows.

Lot of weird shit go on in these parts.  Weird by any account you understand.  Whether you follow the feller that walks on water or the feller who took a night walk up into the sky or wise old coyote or that feller sleepin' in the sea.  Don't matter which, there some weird goings on.  I'm fittin to tell you one a them stories.  Except this one is for true.  This my special story.  I don't tell it to ever one come along so it's yer lucky night new feller.  Lemme just get this fire stoked and finish up my dinner and we can get started.

He takes awhile, doddering around on his old legs, to build the fire up in a manner that ought to last for the night and to finish his dinner.  By the time he is done the lights of the town have mostly gone out save for what is most likely the bars and other houses of ill repute.  Between the waning moon, the town winding down and the smoke of the fire it is difficult to see much beyond the reaches of the flames light.  It is difficult to resist being drawn closer to the warmth and light of the fire and the voice of the man as his tale begins.  

He speaks first about the beginning of the War Between the States or, as it's now becoming known as it stretches on, the Civil War.  He relays the history of it, occasionally drawing grumbles from one listener or another.

Go on now, stow it.  I don't much care to hear from any of y'all on this.  You really feel so raw hows about you just go on an' shoot each other an let me tell my story.  You know well as I we all been killing each other for damn near any reason long as we had any reasonin in our heads.  Plenty of folk done ugly things and most folk say one day or another they gonna be judged, by another if not by us.  Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself.  Look what you made me do.  Gol durn it.

Point is there been a lot of ugliness.  Lot of bad business.  Don't care what color coat they was wearing.  Blue, Grey or Red.  Or even if they wasn't wearing em.  Don't need no gubbermint sanction to be an evil bastard.  Plenty of ugliness done to and by settlers.  Plenty of ugliness done to and by the First Sons out here, that's the tribes new feller.  Plenty of killing over the color of someone's skin or what magical spirit in the sky they thought were in charge or what piece of land they called home.  Lot of bull shit if you ask me, but then no one ever do ask me.

Member what I said bout the coats.  Fer you new feller an' fer them of you just never bothered to tell one invader from another, they mean something.  Blue is Union, Grey is the Rebels, Red is the British.  I think Blue were Frenchies at one point too an' if'n I'm not mistaken Reds was Spanish down in Mexico.  Don't quote me on that now.  I ain't never been down there.  Anywho, point is there come to be another color too.  This the story of what they is and where they comed from and what they do.  It ain't no tall tale now.

I ain't got time for no long ass regurgitatin of all the sins and meanness and petty bullshit of man right.  Ain't no need for it anyhow.  You all seen enough.  I told you plenty stories bout the evil folk do to each other.  It's ever body, it always has been.  Ain't no need to go into ancient history tryin' to account fer ever body.  There a lot of darkness out there.  There a lot of darkness in here.  Little history just the same.

Civil War.  Y'all know why we fightin, or if'n you prefer why they fightin.  That a whole barrel of bad business.  That a whole ship of barrels, matter of fact that a few fleets of ships all full of barrels of bad business.  Comin' out this ways maybe you thought you got away from all the bad business in the New World, well you know better now don't you.  Plenty of bad business out West too.  Wars with the First Sons. First Sons warring with each other.  You go the Californios.  You got the Vaqueros coming up from the South.  We was pushin' plenty of evil West with us, even as we was driving them First Sons out in front.  That's where them new Coats done comed from.  Kind of.

We called it Manifest Destiny.  Said god told us we could take all the Indians land and it was all ok.  This one feller he called it something else and he got it in his head that he was gonna put a stop to it.  Only knowed one way to do that.  Ain't never heard his name, or least I forget it if I did, but this feller he left his tribe and headed all the way East.  Feller believed he knew what he were doin' well enough he made his way right through all manner of hell back to the East Coast, clear on back to North Caroliner, and he set to defeatin both of em.  Union and Rebels that is.  Wanted ever one of us back across that ocean.  Clear enough that didn't work out, but the story ain't done just yet.

Feller went clear on back to where the first English colony were set up.  Roanoke.  Might be familiar to those of you what have interest in history.  Don't know how long he were there putting together whatever it were he put together, but while he were doing it we was fast approachin' a big day in history.  Biggest battle, so far, of the Civil War and the way things are lookin' these days probably gonna be the biggest for some time.  Gettysburg.  Y'all heard about it.  What y'all ain't heard is what I'm fixin ta tell ya.

Now maybe it were just happenstance or maybe some a what that First Son feller in Roanoke were doin' done led him to the right day to do his thing, but it come to be that he do his little thing right smack dab in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg.  

This brings forth a good deal of grumbling.  It is harder now to see the others as the flames of the fire are just beginning to die down.  Others seem to recognize this as well and scoot in closer to the flames.  It is cold and dark out there and bringing up that Battle doesn't exactly bring forth the most pleasant of thoughts.  As you too scoot nearer the flames you look about at the others and see similar expressions on many of their faces.  This is a more troubling story than they expected.  No Paul Bunyan here.

Might be some a yous was there.  Might be some a yous was supposed to be there but ya walked out.  Might be some a yous already told me yous was there or wasn't there but was supposed to be.  Ain't gonna change the story fer your sensitive dispositions.  My sincerest of apologies.  We all know what went down there.  Least most of it.  War.  Men killing each other, up close and personal.  Ugly bad business.  Worst battle of the war.  Worser than you might realize.  See that feller in Roanoke he wanted justice.  Fer the wrongs done to his people and all them other people we had wronged and was wronging.  You may or may not believe in the old magics fellers but he did, and them old magics they believed in him too I guess.  Least to an extent.

You know well as I do weren't no winner in Gettysburg.  And I don't mean just in some pyrrhic victory or moral sense.  That were a turning point and no one never explained why.  Well this here is why.  That feller he called up some of the old magic.  He called on the old ways, the old justice.  Old Testament type shit.  He got it too.  Called on spirits was around long before we started talking about forgiveness and salvation and all type of nice happy shit.  Called on them for justice, to stop the stealing of lands, violating of contracts, murder and pillage and rape and all the mean spirited evil shit of the world.  Called the dead back up.

The Black Coats started there.  Crashed in like a wave on Gettysburg.  Guess that were a concentration then.  Makes sense you think about it.  Whole lot of dying and killing.  Whole lot of pain, misery, fear, anger, rage, hate.  Whole lot of ugliness but it was about to get a whole lot more uglier.  Native feller called up a judgement on man.  Wanted the Europeans gone from his land so his folk could return to the world before we all washed up on their shores.  Started right there in Gettysburg, the freshly dead got called on up.  Not all of them though.  That were part of it.

Y'all probably had brothers or friends or at least enemies fought in that battle.  Some of them were good folk, fighting for whatever reasons they were fighting for.  They stayed there in the dirt among the trees and brush and all that.  Some of them weren't good folk.  They were the ones that raised up.  

Blood crusted, clothes and bodies torn, limbs missing, eyes bulging, mouths twisted.  They spilt their lives blood on the Earth there but something else filled em back up and they marched once more.  Fought a new battle and both of the old sides were fightin' a losing battle.  Dead don't get demoralized.  Don't get tired.  Don't get scared.  Don't retreat.  Don't surrender.  They just keep on coming.  Some of the men they kilt stayed dead, they was good men.  Some of the men they kilt though raised right up once their clock had ticked it's final tock.

By the time the battle was over and both the Union and Rebel boys had drawn back from the battlefield to figure out just what exactly was going on...by that time the risen dead was covered in blood and the blood had all soaked in and dried up.  Their coats were sodden with blood and gore.  Blackened with it.  They were the Blackcoats and that wasn't the end of them.

Years come they spread out and their purpose spread on with em.  That Native feller that called em up would come to regret it.  Their judgement extended not just to the white man from across the sea but to ever feller in their reach.  They got a taste for evil, but not necessarily what you and I consider evil.  Their standards ain't ours.  Hell some a the stories I told y'all is more'n enough to bring them on and they always out there, somewhere.  Creepin' in the wood.  Quiet.  Patient.  Lingerin.

The winds picked up around you, bringing in the cold and a subtle smell that grew stronger.  Danker.

We all sinners out here and that judgement that feller called down it come for us all.

The man leaned forward to place his hands on his knees and pushed up to a standing position, his knees indeed audibly cracking as he rose.  He pulled a necklace out from his shirt, a simple leather thong holding a strange totem that began to buzz as it touched the open air.

One of the First Sons who had come to the campfire drew down on the man and fired.  It was hard to see but a sharp eye might recognize the campfire flames reaching out to take the bullet as it flew.  Maybe you saw it, maybe you didn't, but either way the storyteller was untouched.  And either way, whether you saw it or not, you for sure heard the rustling coming from the darkness around you. 

It's judgement time fellers.  I done heard most of yer stories but it ain't my judgement what matters.  Blackcoats is about.  I don't know about you but I'm real curious to see what they think.  Good luck stranger.  Best comfort I can give you is ya wont even see it coming.  Blackcoats is hard to see in the dark.

With that the fire died.  It didn't blow out, it didn't shrink and smoulder, it just died out all at once and the dark rushed in.  The dark of a cold frontier night on the far outskirts of a small town in the West, and all that comes with it.

The year is 1879 but in the world of Deadlands it is a very different 1879.  In both of our worlds the year of 1863 saw the United States at war with itself but in this world things went very differently.  For one thing, the war did not end two years later.  For another rumors persist...persistently...enough that many have good reason, though oddly little evidence, to believe something else quite important happened that day.  The dead of Gettysburg rose and beset the living, Blue or Grey making no difference whatsoever. 

That's ancient history now though.  Well 16 years, but much has changed in those years.  Slavery has been abolished.  A new natural resource, known as Ghost Rock, has been found that burns Five Times Hotter and One Hundred Times Longer than Coal.  California has, in large part, been reclaimed by the Pacific leaving a broken land known as The Great Maze.  Utah has been taken over and renamed The Republic of Deseret.  What's more Manifest Destiny has been considerably delayed with the founding of two separate large Indian nations, The Coyote Confederacy and the Sioux Nations.  Amid all this chaos, Ghost Rock has dropped the nations into an Industrial Age.

What Is This?

This RP is an attempt to combine the freedom of collaborative non-linear roleplay with some linear storytelling, incorporating as much as possible actual Pen and Paper rules to ensure a dangerous engaging experience.  Hopefully it works.

It's a fairly short story with a start and a finish, though leaving things open to play or encounter our characters again.

For this story we will all be either living in or making our way toward a small town in Kansas called Selina. Selina is a small town North East of Dodge. Kansas is known as Bloody Kansas in this setting. Selina is rather basic, consisting of a respectable if quite bare bones Bed and Breakfast run by one Father O’Flanagan, the monastery where O’Flanagan works, a General Store run by a ex-miner who once hit it big, a taxidermist by the name of Zeke, and a small three man operation Sheriff's Department. Selina is more friendly than most toward the various Indian tribes as there has been in large part an unofficial policy of live and let live. Most inhabitants of Selina get by by being as self sufficient as possible and selling any food or goods beyond what very little they truly need in Dodge.

Our Party

2sky11 - Rick Matthews, Union Cavalryman
Dragonbud - Aveline, Blessed
ElGappa - Constantin LeBlanc, French Soldier of Fortune
Lewis - John Blackburn, Investigator
Wampower - Franz Kaufman, Austrian Gunsmith and Ex-Soldier

About The Setting

While this adventure won't explore most of the world or many of the themes here is a bit, fresh from the Player's Guide, to explain the setting and where it differs from the world we all live in.

Bloody Kansas and Dodge
Kansas has been the site of 25 years of guerilla warfare, and shows no signs of calming down any time soon. According to the original Kansas-Nebraska act, which opened Kansas to settlement back in 1854, the people of the territory would vote on whether the territory would enter the Union as a free or slave state. One can guess what kind of conflict this caused.
For a while, Kansas had been fighting its very own Civil War, well before the Blues and Grays ran into their little problem. “Border ruffians” from Missouri filtered across the border and tried to ensure Kansas became a slave state, while abolitionists called “Jayhawkers” tried to counter their efforts. Neither group shied from violence to influence the decision of Kansas’ citizens. Kansas wound up joining the Union as a free state only a few months before the Civil War broke out.

While no major military campaigns have been fought here, the long tradition of guerilla warfare and intimidation continues to this day. Diehard Rebs and staunch Unionists often live side by side in some Kansas towns. The fact that regular military units are pretty much prohibited in Kansas only allows these tensions to boil out of control, sometimes even erupting into “Territorial Wars” between towns loyal to differing nations. The fire of the Civil War may only be embers and coals, but Kansas is a powder keg, and the fuse is still burning.

Dodge meanwhile, though we’re not going there in this story, is a large bustling trade center thanks to it being a stop on two major rail lines and an area with a plentiful buffalo population.  Between all the trade, all the buffalo hunters, and the general tensions of Kansas it’s a hell of a dangerous city.  Fortunately Deputy Wyatt Earp has the constitution necessary to enforce a law requiring the temporary confiscation of firearms upon entrance into town.

An Ugly Past
Let’s get this out of the way early— whether in the North, South, West, or somewhere in between, slavery is a thing of the past. While it was a divisive issue in 19th Century America, and many on both sides of the Civil War cited it as a moral motivation to prosecute the war, the real causes of the Civil War were quite a bit more complicated.

In any event, it rapidly became clear to Confederate leadership that in order for the fledgling nation to gain international recognition, the “Peculiar Institution” must be discarded. In 1864, Generals Robert E. Lee and Patrick R. Cleburne proposed a plan to offer slaves their freedom in exchange for military service. President Davis quickly endorsed the plan in a Congressional address.

This helped convert the British Empire’s passive sympathy toward the Confederate cause into formal recognition of its independence, and French Emperor Napoleon III soon followed suit. In exchange for the aid of England and France in breaking the Union blockade of Southern ports, and an agreement with England to fix the Confederate dollar to the British pound at a very favorable rate, the British asked the Confederacy to abolish slavery altogether. The Davis administration complied, and on April 9, 1865, all slaves in the Confederate States of America were freed.

Fearful of losing the moral high ground (and “naturally anti­ slavery” himself), United States President Abraham Lincoln quickly followed the earlier Emancipation Proclamation (which only abolished slavery in states in rebellion against the United States) with the proposed 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which would end slavery in America. The Amend­ ment was ratified by the end of the year.

By 1879, racism is becoming a thing of the past in the Weird West. Progress has been made, and more will come as peace returns and folks resume their normal lives. The prospect of further integration of Confederate society is aided by a greater sense of community and shared values than in actual history. Circumstances are similar in the North. Just as in the real West, folks are willing to overlook the color of a person’s skin in favor of the content of his or her character.
Bottom line: just as in our own lives, bigoted and outright racist attitudes are the province of villains and the shamefully ignorant.

roleplayerguild.com/topics/171780-dea…

Sunshine State

I run.

I gasp.

I choke.

I run some more.

My family is beside me for awhile.

I look back and they are gone.

I have no time to mourn them.

A stranger beside me turns and meets my eye.

I wish he wouldn't do that, it only makes it harder.

I say a silent prayer that we both make it to the border.

A moment later he falls in tatters.

I keep running.
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[This is Thresher to Georgia Peach, come in Georgia Peach. Over]

[This is Georgia Peach, reading you loud and clear. Over]

[Sit. Rep. on the run aways Georgia Peach, they've been eliminated. Stupid bastards tried to smuggle out some tech]

[Read you loud and clear Thresher, good work. Steel Be With You. Over]

[And with you. Over]
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Steel boots carelessly step on my pelvis, crushing it to dust and pushing some internal organs out onto the floor. If I weren't in an absurd amount of shock I imagine it would be a very painful but enlightening experience. How often does one get to see his own insides, they're usually, well, inside.

The men who slaughtered my family form three circular perimeters. One around the spot where my mother and my sister were lost, one around the still twitching body of that stranger, and a final around my body. They face outward to keep an eye on any interlopers while a single soldier from each circle steps out of his suit. Their sleek shiny suits cutting a sharp contrast across the barren wastelands their campaign has recreated.

Wouldn't you know it, the soldier who has come to check me is a woman. She is beautiful, radiant even. Her skin is clean. Her hair is golden brown and slightly sweaty, a lock falls into her face as she kneels over to examine me. If we had met under different circumstances I believe I'd have fallen in love with her at this very moment, and perhaps we'd have gone on to have children of our own.

She reaches towards my pants and if I had enough blood to blush I certainly would. She is just checking for tech of course. The pain is excruciating as she moves my body about to allow her to more easily search my bloody pockets. She finds the chip, it's not really worth much, just a component, but it's worth an awful lot more than my life.

I could be okay with that. A piece of metal with some bits of plastic, some silicon, some other random crap thrown together. I could be okay with those random bits being worth more than the sum of my years on this godforsaken planet.

But I'm not okay with the piece of metal [censored] in my pocket being worth more than my mom. I'm not okay with them killing my sister and tossing her tiny body around like a rag doll trying to find some other stupid ****ing little chip.

The woman turns around.

My anger gives me the strength I need to turn over, despite my shattered hip screaming at me to stop, insisting that I lie down and die. I twist just enough to reach behind me. I grit my teeth almost enjoying the pain. The pain tells me that I'm still alive enough to do this. I feel underneath my body for agonizing seconds until my hands happen upon my revolver.

I scatter the brain matter of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen across the dirt, somewhere near the Southern border of what was once Georgia. I'm done running.

roleplayerguild.com/topics/184286-kin…

RPing Ain't Always Easy: A Collaborative Guide To The Stuff That Makes This Hobby Less Fun Sometimes And How To Make It More Betterer

I found the secret, roleplayers hate me, I just don't start any RPs.  Can't get rejected if you never try.  Bazinga.

For realzies though, trying to start an RP and having no one join can be very frustrating.  You have a great idea in your mind, you've put some portion of that in to a post and people just aren't seeing the brilliant possibilities of your idea.  It can be hard to know why.  Maybe it's because everyone is in my much better RP but probably not.  They can't meet my high standards.

What problems have you had in joining in with the RPing?  What worked for you to overcome those problems?  What didn't?  How thankful are you to me for being the one true sure solution to all your problems?  You're welcome.

This is a hobby most of us love.  That love isn't always as strong as it is at the best times.  You put a lot of yourself into this hobby and so the failures can hurt.  They're not always your fault and even when they are that is simply part of the process.  You fall on your face again and again until you fall on your face a little bit less.

I started a goofy little thread here and a bunch of really high quality users contributed and contributed and eventually it took form as this.  I have tried to credit everyone who participated by either naming the Hider after them or mentioning them at the start of the section they wrote using the @Username format, I imagine they would be happy to receive a "Thanks for what you said in that one thread, it helped me," if something they say helps you.  Cheers.

@Tuujaimaa
The key to a writing a good roleplay that will stand the metaphorical test of time is introspection, reflection, and iteration.

Use Hiders to excess, everyone loves excessive Hiders

If your Interest Check is too rudimentary many will not want to join an underdeveloped setting.  Some will.  Some will love the idea of helping to build a world collaboratively to RP in, but many expect the OP to have a Setting ready and waiting to go.

Here are some examples of Good to Great Presentation, In No Particular Order (including my own because I'm full of myself)

The Blackwood 
- Lovely gradient title (I don't know how to do that)
- Image that sets a tone and also sets a...setting 
- Guidelines for participation
- Worldbuilding including Races, Gods, Stats, and use of Rolls
roleplayerguild.com/topics/183420-the…

The Witcher: Under The Shadow 
- Another image that sets a tone and this one is actually a gif, that's neat
- Flavor content in the form of a poem and a historical quote from the existing lore
- An introduction, a map, and a list of big factions and important people
roleplayerguild.com/topics/180815-the…

Warhammer 40K: Enemy Without, Enemy Within [Jb]
- Title Banner is centered right about an image that sets the tone quite well
- A Summary explaining what players should expect and what the GM will expect of the players
- An in character prompt to explain where things stand as the story begins
- Links to existing lore for those less familiar with the setting
- Rules and a Sample Character Sheet format
roleplayerguild.com/topics/157848-war…

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western 
- An image to establish tone and setting, this one had the name of the thread built in 
- Short introduction to establish setting and tone
- Explanation of factions, character types, and forms of magic
- Character Sheet template
roleplayerguild.com/topics/171547-dea…

Rosefell High 
- Title in a cool font
- Image to establish setting a bit better and it's a gif, which is neat
- Brief introduction followed by a bit about expectations
- Rules and Guidelines for Character Creation
- Excellent Character Sheet template
- That excellent template led to some of the best Character Sheets I've seen.  It's worth it to go to the Characters Tab just to get a look at how good this format looks and how much work the participants put in to making some good ass character sheets.  Hot damn.
roleplayerguild.com/topics/183907-ros…

As you can see mine is the simplest of them all.  A single image at the beginning, a short explanation of the setting and a short listing of basically flavor material classes.  It's not much, the other examples have a lot more, but it's still just a bit more than the minimum.

@Ammokkx
I've found that in order to have a good interest check, you need to have at least some elements (but not all) of the following (and I definitely have left some gaps but oh well):

Being able to clearly articulate your idea. You may have the best ideas in the world, but if you can't properly explain what it's about then you're not going to get anywhere.

Doing something that people are both asking for, and others aren't providing. This one's a bit more abstract, but what it comes down to is this: Interest for a generic fantasy adventure is always high, but if your adventure is too generic, and there's 3 other RPs already on the market dealing with the same thing, people are going to be playing in those instead.

Knowing what you want. This isn't the same as having a detailed idea, mind. I've gotten away with posting an interest check titled "let's brainstorm a yugioh roleplay together" and I sure did draw a crowd from it (even if, when it got time to actual writing, it all fell apart). Thing is, even in that brainstorm thread I still laid out a few fundamental things I was looking for. Close to the anime, none o' dat meta shit, a lot of freedom in how duels unfolded (so no simulators). The details of the actual plot was for everyone interested to figure out together. This, too, was made clear. Set your boundaries and stick to them.

Putting effort into presentation. I'm not saying "use colours, tables, images and gifs like your life depends on it" since, really, I don't do that either. But do try to format your text in a clearly readable, easily accessible manner. Organizing your thread to have a clear beginning-middle-end structure and making sure it has at least some logical chronology to it goes a loooong way.

@ERode
 from my point of view, there's two ways in which players are drawn/stuck with a RP: the promise of a fun plot, and the potential for characters to grow. If you can formulate an idea that offers both ways, that's even better! To clarify what I mean, I guess I'll ram in some examples...
School-based RPs are essentially all about character development. If this is a battle school, people can look forward to growth in terms of their supernatural or martial abilities. If this is a SoL school, people can look forward to hooking up and causing melodrama. If you add in a concrete overworld plot ("This is a post-apocalyptic world with a dystopian government who sends superpowered teens on ridiculously lethal missions"), you heighten the potential for even more positive/negative developments by letting your plot spark inter-PC drama. Sometimes, it backfires by making people get pissed OOCly at each other, but I've seen at least one time where it worked VERY well, and culminated into a RP that didn't lose any players at all. Initially, it's the promise that something special will happen to your character, and your character alone, that draws in interest, whether it be GM-sanctioned power upgrades or a trashy, dumpster-fire romance sparked by an encounter gone horribly wrong.

As extra examples, Ariamis's Magical Girl CYOA makes character creation hella involved by adding in an element of randomness that gives people ideas about their character that they wouldn't immediately have thought about or considered on their own. Rune's Epic of Beginnings encourages making cool, heavy backstories (cult leader, literally Oda Nobunaga) because you get a superpower based off that backstory, and then afterwards, that backstory can be used to inform your character's trajectory through what is otherwise a sandbox-y setting.

Adventure RPs depend on having a delicious plot to draw people in, and they paint a fantasy of involvement, of being part of something that'd change the world rather than yourself. Sparking a rebellion, escaping a prison island, killing a dragon, all those pull in attention through having any character you make involved in something lasting, something big. If you can get people excited about what they're going to do, and what they're going to plan against, then that excitement can be the momentum you use to drive the RP until they've become invested enough that it'd feel bad to leave. Conveying the idea that they'd have something to do immediately when IC begins, and then carrying through with that promise, gives potential players something to look forward to, and then something to enjoy. In this case, even people who're not interested in having long, philosophical chatter with other players can enjoy the RP, just by beating up baddies or braining themselves outta dicey situations.

As extra examples, Valor's FEARLESS had a hell of a start where PCs of a rebellion immediately crashed a prison to get someone else out, had a deadly encounter with an elite guard of a dystopian, superpowered government, and managed to escape after suffering a good amount of injuries, and all that really materialized the sensation of how shit is definitely real, how kid gloves don't exist at all. RC3's Goblin Quest offered a sense of achievement just through the mundane-est of things, such as beating up and eating raw rabbits or crafting random tools on your way to surviving, which worked out well, cause the players start as orphan goblins trying to figure out how to get strong fast, before the humans that slaughtered most of their tribe find them.

And if you can mix plot and development together (Yankee's Windfall comes to mind for creating an ensemble adventure RP where everyone's traveling together around the continent to fulfill different quests that have personal/continental impacts BUT THE SPECIFICS OF HOW THE PLOTS WILL GO IS PLOTTED BY EVERY PLAYER EXCEPT FOR THE ONE WHO PURSUES THAT PLOT), then it becomes fuckin' delicious.

If you can convey the sense that such things are possible, AND the sense that you're able to offer that to players (which may really just be something dependent on something as intangible as the vibes that your post gives off), I think that there's a pretty good chance you'll have at least some interested folk, whether you're new or not. Presentation, of course, also helps a ton (I've become so visually-dependent that my mind shrivels up without A E S T H E T I C S to keep me engaged), while I'd say that branding your RP as based off something else (rather than just being inspired by it), is a double-edged sword in terms of getting people's attention. Pretty sure others make better points about it than I did though.

@Yankee
Presentation is very important. That doesn't mean a lot of fancy bbcode, but it does mean taking a moment to present your ideas in a clear, concise way. For example, a large wall of block of text can be a big turn off, but breaking that wall down into multiple paragraphs is already an improvement to help with information digestion. Also, less is more! Especially when it comes to 1x1 checks, not to come off rude but... no one needs your life story. Make your RP ideas front and center, at least!

@fledermaus

> have a header with the title large above a centered image that represents the roleplay; image height shouldnt be smaller than 250px or taller than 700px

> break your information into sections and have a header smaller than the title above it (i typically have premise (where i give the story bit), setting, ooc information, and rules)

> use some varied  color. nothing is more offputting to me than a block of white or a block of xyz. pick a color, make it the color of your headers and title, and either leave the rest white or color it gray (my preference)

@fledermaus
lizard brain likes pretty things, make it look nice

It is harder to find people to join your RPs when you are just starting.  People will not know who you are, how you write, how you deal with conflict in RPs and that may make them more reluctant to join your RP.  Being just too damn good of a writer may have that effect as well.  I can't tell you how many times someone has told me "Hey BangoSkank, I'd love to join one of the many many brilliant RPs you have started but you are just too damn good.  Too damn handsome.  I can't keep up."  It is my gift and my curse, my cross to bear.

@Yankee
As far as reputation goes, you'd be surprised how far a name and avatar change can go along with a dedicated plan to turn over a new leaf. If you're worried about your reputation putting people off, try on a new "brand" so to speak and work to change it, especially by reaching out to others. They say you get what you give, so joining other people's checks will give some good karma

[@TGM]
Do note reputation works in the inverse as well. If you have a reputation as someone who people don't want to be around, unreliable, temperamental, bad GMing, etc. people will pass on you. It's up to you to fix your reputation at that point and show you've grown past your past issues and consistencies. 

@Obscene Symphony
Reputation is  e x t r e m e l y  important. If you're new and don't have much posting history for people to look at (or if you mainly RP in PMs), write up some writing samples (or some previous RP posts you're particularly proud of) in a Gallery thread for potential partners or GMs to peruse. If you have a history of making an ass of yourself in the OOC, you'll have a hard time. Et cetera.

@PPQ Purple
What keeps a game alive is not IC but OCC. If people are excited about the game and chatting constantly in OOC either about the game or just with each other they remain invested in it. And such a game can survive a lot, even people vanishing for a long while. But if the OOC is quiet and people are only ever posting IC odds are good that any significant delay or drop in the post rate will kill the game dead.

@Hero
I think sometimes people want more interest than they need. For example, you get a group of maybe 4-5 when you anticipate double that. Sometimes smaller groups actually work out better than larger groups, but they get discouraged when they have only a few people expressing interest if that makes sense.

@Obscene Symphony
Honestly evaluate your skill level and write at that level. Not everyone is cut out for Advanced or even High Casual, and that's okay. Write with people of a similar skill level (no shame in dipping into Free if that's where you fit), be receptive to criticism and take an interest in improving your writing and you WILL get better, and in turn you'll have more options open to you. Because yes, the quality of your writing often DOES matter to potential partners/GMs. You might not like it, but it's true; and luckily, it's entirely within your control to change.  

Most of all, be willing to put in the work. Focus on making every post better than your last and over time you will get results. Better yet, your partners and group members will recognize the effort you put in, and hopefully appreciate you for it. What WON'T get you results, though, is giving up because you think you're doomed or that nobody "understands." Life isn't fair, nothing worth doing is easy, you don't always get rewarded for your efforts, and the only good way to cope with it is to keep trying anyway.

@yoshua171
something else to keep in mind when it comes to taking constructive criticism is that trying a piece of advice once and it failing does not constitute the advice being wrong or responsible for the failure. It just means you tried it once and that time didn't work. Try again.

Don't drop a piece of advice just because it fails once, twice, or three times. If you've tried to make RPs/threads X amount of times and have gotten failure (resulting in a perception of a pattern of failures/bad luck) then why not try a given piece of advice (or more than one) just as many times to see if that method has the same rate of failure.

@Obscene Symphony
don't keep a tally of your failed RPs, cause that's literally just a discouragement machine in the forefront of your mind. Anyone who's been RPing for a few years or more probably has dozens, if not hundreds, of failed RPs under their belt, but they also probably can't even remember most of them cause they moved on rather than dwelling on it. 

Think of it this way. If we ranked hockey players by how many shots they missed and not by how many goals they scored, even the best of the best would look like hot garbage.

@BrokenPromise said
Something else I'd like to say that didn't get hammered home enough in my other post is that sometimes finishing an RP just isn't fun. You feel accomplished when it happens but it can be a drag to get that far. You're not always smiling and hugging your RP buddies, sometimes you're slouching in your chair, vodka in one hand and an empty mug in the other, thinking "Glad that's over!"

[@TGM] replied
If it is a chore to finish a RP, shouldn't you call it quits before it gets to that point? If you aren't having fun and are just doing it to be a completionist it just seems weird to me. Sometimes the best thing you can to do is pull the plug and move on.

@yoshua171
It's funny because it's so easy to think that other people are having a much easier time than you. The reason for that is generally--unless you're specifically looking for it--you only ever see people's successes (RPs that are active/alive long enough for you to notice), whereas their failures (so to speak) are quickly swallowed by newer, more active threads, as they are pushed further and further back through numerous pages.

So yeah, this idea that "everyone else is galloping," is just a result of you not paying individual attention to every attempt that other users on this site have made to get something going. Plus, other aspects of that just happen behind the scenes (On discord, in PMs, etc) so there's not even any chance for you to see it.

Essentially, if you're only looking for peoples' successes, that's the only thing you're going to see.

@stone
You might got good ideas, good characters, hell, even a good camaraderie goin' on with your partner (or group). And then BOOM BAM POW it's all gone (or is it more of a gradual whizzzzzzz as the air deflates out of the RP?)

I've been a GM for ages now. Lots of years. I honestly dunno when I started, at this point. As much as it saddens me to say it, I still haven't seen a forum RP to completion. It's not even an issue with the players I have, and I don't think it's a personal problem of mine, either. It's just the nature of RPing. Hell, my longtime 1x1 partner and I let our RPs die all the goddamn time. It just happens. But we keep going because it's about the journey. And also because of our insatiable need to use the godlike face claims we find online.

An Interest is Niche when it is very specific and has a small group of fans.  Niche Interests are going to be harder to find RPers to RP with.  If you want to do a Sonic The Hedgehog x Naruto Film Noire RP set in the last days of WW2 Tokyo you may have a hard time finding people to RP with you.  Particularly if you want to RP as that Bat Lady with the just really big Ta-Tas and expect it to have Adult Themes. Do you uh...do you want to make that RP?

This is less of a concern than it may seem at first.  There are some very average writers, like me, in Advanced and there are some very good writers in Casual.  If you want to start in Casual start in Casual, if you want to start in Advanced start in Advanced.  Folks here are quite unlikely to be rude to you if you're not quite keeping up.  Sometimes RPing with people better than you is the best way to develop your own writing ability.

Join someone else's RPs.  Starting your own RP is often difficult even in the best of circumstances.  There are many RPs here and many of the RPers here are already in one or more RP.  We all have limited time and so can only join a limited number of RPs.  Joining someone else's RP is a chance for you to meet other RPers, develop a reputation, develop some friendships, and maybe find a new setting you never would have thought of but absolutely adore.

You don't have to, but you should (for your own wellbeing) understand that being less compromising means it will be harder for you to find writing partners.  Here, from @Demonic Raven, is advice on Compromise.

"Your idea might be great but in the end there's a few things that might bug your partner the wrong way. Coming up with solutions for these things and creating new twists and turns for your idea can be a handy skill as it can lead to more involvement from your partner. Collaboration on ideas is a key thing when creating a long lasting plot. For example, your potential partner loves the idea about a werewolf and a vampire but doesn't like the idea of blood and gore. You can come up with a neat idea like the vampires don't feed on blood but instead on life force or energy. Improve courses can help with this actually as it can help you think on your feet while planning the RP or actually RPing."

@Demonic Raven with advice on Over Planning
Over planning a plot can be a big turn off when people are looking for an RP. Now if you wish to attract others who over plot obviously over plot in your interest check and go into great detail. But if you want to seek a broader audience be vague in your idea and then plot with your partner about the nitty gritty details. Now there is also just jumping into a very under planned RP as well which is also what some people like. What you express in your interest check plots will determine the kind of people you RP with. 

@ERode has more advice for balancing Compromise and Over Planning
To supplement old man Broken's ramblings, I would like to say that even if overplanning is perhaps not too great, having a clear end in mind IS very useful, because then, that means you (and the players) have a general idea of where to go in the end. The only RPs I've completed as a GM were relatively short RPs which had a pretty big focus on a quest-like plot, whether it be plunging into the eldritch depths of the Inverted Spire or destroying the goblin nest of Rugome Fort. Both of these had a clear end (everyone died before they reached the end of the Spire, and almost everyone died against the goblins because the goblin leader contracted with an alien god), and also lead to the teasing of future plot threads to pursue and keep in mind if you wish to continue it (what the hell was that last thing they saw in the Spire before their death? why the hell did an alien god grant their boons onto a single frickin' goblin?).

A pattern of having a problem, solving/failing the problem, and then the reflections afterwards forms the backbones of the RPs I've enjoyed along the years. There's always that adage about how the journey's more important than the destination, but having a destination informs the journey and gives meaning to it. Also it cuts down on the dread of an ending RP if you've always been prepared to end your year-old baby from the beginning.

Just don't be so excited that you start talking about how cool future arcs would be, while neglecting to make the starting arc fun and engaging. One, it's spoilers, two, it kills the surprise. That being said, I guess this is more RP-running advice rather than RP-interest-gathering advice. Or perhaps they're one and the same?

Some thoughts from @BangoSkank which is me
I, Bango, which is me, would add to this that Over Planning can also end up hurting your experience because you know where the story is going and the only thing that remains is to get there.  It can make you want to rush to that one really cool set piece you know is coming up but is still so far away.  Taken to it's extremes it can also turn a fun hobby into a chore as you have this Outline planned for all the cool stuff that can happen and frustration when your fellow RPers want to take things in a slightly different direction.  If you have an entire storyline planned out for the drunk old man who bumps into them in The Moldy Dog but they just knock him on his ass and walk away it can be frustrating for the OP trying to make things work the way he imagined them and for the other RPers just trying to do their own thing.

Based on an Example given by [@Ambra] and Advice given by @Demonic Raven

"How about people that want to start RPs on obscure fandoms? I was thinking of eventually starting a Wings of Fire RP or even one centered around dinosaurs."

Try to use all the tools here to find people to RP with.  Word of mouth is golden when doing niche role plays!

- Status Bar : You can post to the Status Bar on the Right Hand Side of the Main Page by going into your profile (click your Name at the Top Right next to Log Out and scroll down a bit to where it says "What's On Your Mind" but don't flood it.

- Partners : Put your friends to work by asking them directly if they would be interested in exploring a niche you like with you or if they know anyone else who might be. 
 
- RPG Discord : Download Discord and join RPG's Discord.  There are one or two channels in the Discord designed for Advertising RPs and Discussing Potential RPs.

Try explaining the setting and it's themes and what about them fascinates you.  Other's may have no idea what in the hell "Wings of Fire" is, but they may LOVE one of the themes or something about the setting.  They may also read the title and make assumptions that prove to be untrue.  Tone can be important here, it is the difference between Warhammer With Dinosaurs or Monster Hunter with Dinosaurs or DuckTales with Dinosaurs.  If you don't know what DuckTales is open YouTube now.  You are welcome.

They were interested in your RP.  They submitted an excellent character sheet.  You changed what you had planned for the plot because I mean, my god, what a character sheet.  That character sheet was almost as good as one of BangoSkank's character sheets.  And then they disappeared forever.  You got ghosted son/lady son.

You can hate being ghosted with all your being, that is not going to eliminate it.  It's something we all experience, it's something we all do much as we try to avoid it.  It is a reality of the hobby and something you need to come to terms with if you are going to continue in the hobby.  Don't hate the ghoster, accept it is part of the hobby.

@stone
It's a fact of life. It sucks when an RP dies. It sucks when you get SUPER ready for an RP and then something happens. 

But you can't hold it against people. You really can't.

Shit happens. It happens a LOT. People get ill, they have to move, they go to school, they drown under homework, depression. There are so MANY things that happen to everybody. So much of it is uncontrollable. So much of it is inevitable. And, sometimes, people just don't have the time or energy to say something. Obviously it would be GREAT if everyone could, but everyone has their own circumstances. Maybe someone's house fuckin burns down and they're left without internet access for a whole three months. I'm sure the first thought in their mind isn't "man I really gotta tell my RP partner that I can't respond." It's probably more like "holy shit my house burned down with all my valuables and I have to get my life back together and find another place to live and survive." And you definitely can't fault them for ghosting in that situation, right?

And of course, that's an extreme. Of course most of your partners or groups won't be dealing with something as heavy as that. Most of the time it's just motivation, or schoolwork, or any of the things I said above and more.

The key thing is to remember the human. There's another person there on the other side of the screen. There's someone else typing out their own worlds, characters, stories. There's another person dealing with their own set of life circumstances. You have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

@Demonic Raven
I get that frustration, it's not great, but all you can do is keep trying until it sticks. That is the one thing that can be infuriating at times about role playing, things don't stick, nothing is guaranteed, and a great role play you love can be done in an instant. All you can do is to pick yourself up, dust off and try again with someone new. That's how the cycle of role playing works. There is very rarely a role play that lasts longer than a year from what I've experienced. So accepting that will help you feel less down when it inevitably happens.

You're going to be rejected more often than not, most likely, if you are constantly trying to join RPs.  Lots of people have preferred groups they enjoy RPing with and RP with them over and over and it can be hard to get into one of those groups sometimes.  Even if you are friends with a group here RPs often only really have so many slots for characters before they become unwieldy.  It may come down to "We like you and we like your character but BangoSkank is just so much better and his character is a work of art and also my god have you seen him?  So handsome, so we're going with him."

That is a common problem here.  Try not to take it personally.  Happens to everyone, except me.

RPs almost never live long enough to properly finish.  It happens sometimes but that is the exception rather than the rule.  If you have participated in an RP from it's birth through it's awkward teenage years and then to a satisfying conclusion Congratulations!!!.  If you haven't try to understand that that is the norm.  People lose interest, life intervenes, inspiration waxes and wanes, and sometimes people just have the attention spans of goldfish and attach to a new RP.  It doesn't mean you're a bad writer, it doesn't mean they're bad writers, it doesn't mean anyone is a dick, it's just how this hobby goes.

As @Obscene Symphony says,
"The thing people don't brag about when they celebrate their RPs' 1, 2, 3+ year anniversaries are the 95%+ of their other RPs that died in the first month. It's a death-heavy hobby, if you can't cope with that then you might be better off writing solo. I've been at this for over 7 years and do you know how many of the RPs I've been in lasted a year or more? Three. And of those, only one ever got an actual ending. We're in this because it's fun while it lasts, not because we think every RP will last forever."

@BrokenPromise has some excellent advice on keeping it alive and keeping a healthy perspective
A lot of RPs that I start end up coming to completion. Part of it is because I've been failing doing this for a long time, another part is because I have a lot of autism determination, and I'm not one to give up on an RP just because a few people leave, or if even my favorite people leave. My Danganronpa RP is the first RP I started on this forum about three months into my membership, and it's going to have a satisfying ending right at the 4 year mark. That's going to happen because I decided to keep running the RP when most of the players left, and was willing to wait out some long hiatuses to make things work. And of course because I have players that I am willing to put that kind of effort in for. They have been just as patient and tolerant as I have, and are a large part of why I'm willing to hold out for them. Hell, they had to kick my ass into gear a few times and they probably didn't even know it. But it does take effort.

But that's sort of the exception. Usually I run an RP for a year or two with an end in mind. And hey, sometimes even those fail. Doesn't matter too much to me though. I've got great memories of RPs that didn't finish, and friends I made along the way. Yea, completing an RP does give you that rush of accomplishment. Like hiking up a tall mountain and conquering it. But even if you don't conquer the mountain, the hike can be its own reward.

One thing that can lead to the down fall of an RP is if you constantly ask your RP partner if your post is okay or if an idea is okay! Lord knows that it's hard in the beginning to fully gain the confidence to say "Hey, I did a great job with my post and if my partner doesn't like it that's okay as we can resolve it or go our separate ways. Ending a role play because of artistic differences in writing is natural and okay!" Remember, not everyone will have the same writing style as you and sometimes you'll clash. But have confidence in yourself and what you write as it's hard to keep an RP going if you constantly get messages asking if the post was okay and if you need to rewrite it. Learn your writing strengths as well and play into them when writing, this will significantly boost your confidence.  Try not to compare yourself too much to others.  There are some excellent writers here but everyone has their off days and their on days.  Except me, all on days here.

@CorrosiveCherri
Personally, I try to take a very relaxed approach to the hobby as a whole. Unless I'm really trying to get into some coolsy-cool stuff and write collaborative fiction at a high level, I use it more as a way to blow off steam and work out the kinks in my writing style, as well as help buff up my word choice and try different themes and voice for characters and worlds alike. It's a hobby, and in my opinion, it's a hobby ancillary to compelling narrative writing as a whole. Dealing with differences both in terms of creativity and skill level can be difficult, but sometimes you just have to breathe and remind yourself "hey, you know, they've got their vibe and I've got mine." Sometimes you can make your patterns and styles tessellate, but it's rare to click perfectly with someone. 

If you're having trouble with roleplays dying over and over and over again, it might be time to look at what your standards of writing are, or if the side hobby is even something for you at the moment. It's not like sports where you could get injured and be out of it for the rest of your life. You can take breaks from it and focus on things that make you happy, rather than letting it absorb all of your attention and time. 

But, in a similarly personal vein, I find the best way to get yourself out there is to put yourself out there. Show off the best of what you've got. Write pretty words, try original settings that other people just aren't doing--take advantage of the fact that you can just pull a concept from the ether and put it on a page. Hell, coming up with a new plotline and world wireframe every day or every few days or so is a great creative writing exercise. Work on what you're doing and ensure your demeanor is pleasant and casual, and I'm sure the posters will come. 

Rome wasn't built in a day, but hey, Minecraft lets you do some pretty cool shit in a pretty short amount of time. Don't look for your Rome. Look for your sweet gamer Minecraft house for gamers. ...That metaphor got away from me.

@Celaira
After a certain point you want to sit back and look at several things: 

1. What are people currently interested in? What are some popular RPs that are alive right now, and what do they focus on? Do they line up with anything I'm interested in?

2. If the RPs themselves don't interest you, but some of their themes do, utilize those themes in your next thread!

3. If you don't have partners or friends who can/want to join your thread, post an interest check and let people engage with the idea there. 

Realistically, you should also try and join threads if you want to make them. Joining other RPs allows you to meet people, and make friends who then might be interested when you start up a thread of your own.

@Bork Lazer
You must first recognise that play by post roleplaying on a forum such as this and many others such as RPNation and Iwaku are inherently mercurial and chaotic in nature. Posters are not electronic robots that you encounter on the wild wastes of the internet. They are people. We have made this grave for ourselves whereby we value some abstract concept of literary quality as the marker of a good RP. There are multiple factors that make a good RP and focusing inherently on one single factor does nothing good for you. 

Blaming them for the failure of your RP is about as useful as blaming water for being wet. It’s redundant at best.

Ultimately, I would encourage everyone that the best way to get more out of this hobby is to learn and adapt. Staying stagnant with one single routine and one single fandom and trying to get people to fit within a mold that you have crafted isn’t the best approach. Join other RPs. Learn from other successful posters. Try to have fun. Learn from your failures. Failure is a teacher whose lessons are not always obvious at first but it’s up to you whether or not to take those lessons to heart.

@Rapid Reader
I always feel there's a bit of a case of exaggerated expectations for RPing (and creative pursuits in general).

You have to ask yourself, "what does success mean for me as a GM/RPer"?

And realistically, if success for you is a several year long RP that runs perfectly, you will always be disappointed. Even expecting more than two people to post their interest or even commit to an RP is a pretty lofty goal.

RPing is like any form of writing (although I don't really think it's exactly the same as novel writing) in that it takes a lot of work, practice, and failure to learn. And like life, it's doomed to die. You can never beat death. Your RP no matter how great, no matter how fun, no matter how much effort you put into it will die (but you should embrace that and it be a motivating factor).

Reasonable goals when you start (or as you learn) are things like "I want to get 1-3 posts in before this RP dies" (as a player or GM). Looking at all the RPs posted on this forum, if you manage to make one post as a player or get one player post in your RP, then congrats, you've now reached the elite of the elite in terms of RPs, players, and GMs.

Eventually you might find groups or individual players you jam with. This however rare, this is special, and it isn't something you should expect to find regularly (e.g., if you are going into RPing expecting to find your creative soul mate or best friends for life, then you are setting yourself up for failure). If you do find people that you mesh with, then at that point just enjoy it for however long it lasts (there are no assurances of time in RPing or life).

RPing is a fun, ethereal hobby you should engage in purely for your own amusement, chasing success (outside of your own fun and the fun of other people) or "popularity" is massive waste of time in a medium that amounts to "I put on my wizard hat".

when i'm not in it

Success as a GM means that my players are engaged and having fun interacting with each other in IC and OOC. It doesn't matter how long it lasts as long as they had fun while it did.

Success as a GM is getting players to post, like, at all. That's a serious answer, if you need it. The GM's job, in my mind, is to make a fun adventure for the players. I struggle with this concept, like, a lot. As long as people are posting, or at the very least want to post, I am doing my job right. If they do not want to engage with the story, I have done something wrong and need to change my approach.

Successes for me is completing my goals. Yes, that is finishing the RP, but that is a very long term goal. I also have lots of short terms goals that I strive to hit. Sometimes it's wrapping a player up in the RP's story, getting a reaction out of someone, acquiring a waifu ,or just hitting any kind of milestone. I don't really set out with these goals in mind, they just kind of pop up while I'm RPing. I guess Success for me is just ensuring these little goals actually appear to me. so long as I have an objective, I seem to be enjoying myself.

Success for me as a GM means that everyone has fun no matter how long it lasts.

As player success is completing a character sheet that I am happy with.

I consider it a bonus and view an RP as extremely successful as a player if I manage to make one post in character before said RP dies.

Although I don't GM, if I did GM I would consider a group RP as successful if I got three players to submit character sheets. If each of my three players posted once before my RP died, I would consider my RP to be extremely successful.

Finally, although I will never 1 x 1, if I did 1 x 1, I would consider it a massive success if one person expressed interest in my ideas. Getting a 1 x 1 to the planning stage would be even more of a success and getting one post each into a 1 x 1 would in my book lead me to consider it successful.

Honestly, even if the rp dies, so long as I had fun and had good memories, I consider it a success? Idk in my head a rp dying =/= failure per se, though I guess you can argue it depends on when it died. Failure to launch rps are easy enough to discern I think

I tried to list everyone next to their contributions, but in case I missed crediting anyone and for the people who participated in the thread but didn't provide suggestions for writing here are contributors.  Let me know if I missed someone.  It is incredibly unlikely as I am quite good at things, but let me know.

Ambra
Ammokkx
Asuras
BangoSkank
Blackmist16
Bork Lazer
BrokenPromise
Celaira
Chuuya
CorrosiveCherri
Demonic Raven
elgappa
ERode
fledermaus
Hero
Kuro
Majoras End
metanoia
Obscene Symphony
Odin
Rapid Reader
rebornfan320
stone
TGM
Tuujaimaa
Yankee
yoshua171

This is Dervish's Guide to GMing as recommended in the original thread.

He GM'd The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep which lasted two years.  17 pages totaling 336 posts of In Character posting, 28 pages totaling 542 posts in the OOC, 16 characters lived through it and 13 characters either died or disappeared throughout the adventure and they wrote up a grip of fleshed out NPCs too just because.

So yeah, it was a success I guess.  Technically.  No Halflings getting blasted on booze and going on adventures and shit though, just saying.  Priorities yo.  

roleplayerguild.com/topics/177495-der…

roleplayerguild.com/topics/188622-per…

Episode 8: The Great Not-Very-Polychromactdyly-At-All of the Double Deep Jeiti and Other Unnecessities

Atramentous though the Alderson disk was, Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic sank gently, almost seductively really, corpuscating through that Vantablack nightworld as he calibrated the Recursive Diolunium Dial on his Aromatic-Polyamide Weave Gloved Left Hand.  Activating the spozmodiametrical aspect of his Panoptic Hex Texx-Gogs.  It looked just like home as it faded away.  First the Alderson Disk, Fontaniuxiciccix 4 as he lovingly called it, was one, then two, then on and on in just that fashion (as that is the manner in which one counts) Balthazars away.  It was a needless bit of ceremony of course.  Out here in the Double Deep Jeiti far from the meddling of any other, femrikilometers into the Toroidal Body of a Stibious and Frangulic Galaxy, here he was truly and wondrously alone.  And hungry.  Also horny.  A little tired.  Slightly confused.

It was a most needless task yet he must insist upon it.  Whispering to himself he entered a euphmoic trance.  As his Aromatic-Polyamide Weave-Gloved Hands settled upon each bit of equipment he whispered its corresponding name into the Pourii depths about him.

Neoborhium Manticulated into an Q-Bramble blade, sometimes referred to as a Q-Bramblade, polished to an intrinsically implausible sheen, it was his ultimate adytum.  He sensed it, NAY!, he heard it, NAY AGAIN!, he tasted it before he felt it.  The Blade of Legend.  The Sword of Myth.  The Katana of Dread.  The Loosener of Shackles.  The Remover of Bras.  The Sabre of the Downtrodden.  The Zweihander of the Einhanded.  Trapped within it the soul of his Bastard Child, B-Rad.  Ever pleading in perfect iambic pentameter to be loosed upon the world.  It's name was Trilobisekni. 

Only one such as he, Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic, could wield such a blade and only with it could any being even dream of performing the famed manuever known only as the Hiden Doblee Triplut Forbidan Yin Releese Ohm-Mega.

The names of the rest of his gear are longer still, their reputations more reputationy still.  These things were taken by the winds of space, that they may not fall upon the auricular caverns of one unproven.  His whispers taken by the very pulse of the galaxy and his urgent calling growing more urgenter with every passing drot of time goo, he had to pull himself from the reverie. 

No longer free to franisculate in such frivolity.  This time too must pass.

Grimly and with much conscious intent Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic began resetting his Panoptic Hex-Texx-Gogs to an awareness of a scant 14 Muons and corpisculating his Nascense fullindrically he ceased his dramatic dithering.  Gravity had no bearing here.  Gravity was for blutos.  There was no reason to free fall Balthazar by Balthazar as his beloved home, the Fontaniuxiciccix 4, disappeared into the enigmatic and all around pretty damn excellente effluvium.  Even so in his inchoate ritualism it had a value.  A brief respite from the glin and the gribbum of this stolid spacescape.  Tomorrow would wait not one femtoparsec longer.  Dangerrutito ventures once more...

INTO THE FINSTERNISH!!!

Gravid, crustaceous, and corralescing through a vantablack sea of ectoplasmic inexistence, Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic comes to a most non-fortudious and vexxing conscious knowledgiment of self.  He should have taken that left at Albuquerque.  He couldn't hardly grok it.  This was not the illustriously illicit interspatial galaxy of Whore Island 6 at all.  Despite his trepiditious knowledge of Barreliann mathematics and Ciccixitracxtical Physics he must have forgotten to carry the 5.

What a Vetrutooti he was.  A real blummerschoot of a dilly of a pickle this had turned out to be.  Verily, he hathed committed an honest to God fucky-wucky.

Clicking the Xeogenix Toggle on his Panoptic-Hex-Texx-Goggs again and confirming that their awareness was still set to a scant 14 Muons, for what kind of mumpity wumple would risk a Muonnic Conclipse, he began to explore this new world.  The atramentiest of vantablacks, this place had been sucked dry of all color life and sound.  Twas a verifiable veritable void of all...oh.

Despite the Aromatic-Polyamide-Weaved--Gloves encasing his hands in a flexible weave stronger than the strongerest of n-Dimensional Space Spiders he could still tell what the problem was.  That light switch right there was turned to the Off Position.  Most inconvenient really.  Terribly terribly rude.

Flipping the switch the world became most pollutudiously brightened.  A sea of bright beige and grey.

"Step right this way," said an equally beige manthing.

"Kyter!" Dangerrutito declared, "What is this?"

"Huh?" the heavily tattooed but still quite beige and not particuarly interesting, really not worth describing in any further detail or developing any further in terms of character or motives, man replied.

"KYTER! WHAT IS THIS!?!?!?!?" Dangerrutito repeated himself very loudly and very coherently.

After a rather long and confusing conversation involving much illurid and truchasious terminologies Dangerrutito emerged from the equivalent of Not Hell ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) and stepped into Not Hell Proper.

"Hmmm, I can smell the Q-Goo." he vocaloided into his Thaumic VocoRecordoer as he held one Aromatic--Polyamide-Weaved--Glove to shield his Panoptic-Hex=Texx-Goggos from the glare of an entirely too illuminolating landscape.  

"Mmmmmm," he mumbled to himself very masculinly as he reached up without even looking and locked in the Xeogenix Toggle then cranked the Muon Capacitator down to an even more scanter 10 Muons.  It was a really paltry total Muon count at this point, but Dangerrutito had seen one Muonnic Conclipse Event and as the old saying goes "One Muonnic Conclipse Event Is One Muonnic Conclipse Event Too Many" if you know what Dangerrutito is talking about.

Well below the zero-point now Dangerrutito took it all in.  Curvillinear spaces properly luminolated.  Tesseracts tesseraed real nice like.  Demon people doing demon people type shit.  It wasn't at all like in the Chronicles of Xeniikuhix the Brave But Foolish.  There was a lot more leather.  A lot more cigars.  A lot more scantily clad demon and or angel and or other vaguely religious or at least spiritual ladies.  Many of them had nice big tatas.  There was also a lot less polychromatic goblins with huge wangs tearing people apart with hacksaws while gibbering at the moon.

"Not Hell huh," his artificially deepend and made-to-sound-more-cool voice entoned in an attempted one-liner, chuckling briefly in a very unorganic but quite cinematic way, "Hell...ha ha ha...I could get used to this."

"Yeah, that's fucking great bud.  That's kinda the idea right?  What can I do for yas since ya standin in da road?  What's your poison?  Booze?  Uppers?  Downers?  Boomers?  Zoomers?  Whammers? Women?  Men?  Dogs?  Hah, I'm just fucken witcha bud.  We ain't do that shit round here.  We're not monsters, just demons."

"Hmmmm," Dangerrutito intoned again, looking down at a Squat Bearded, Pot Bellied, Bespectacled, and Otherwise Accessorized Demon, he replied in his best Enigmatic Protagonist Voice while winking slowly and with great effort "Surprise me."

As the hustle and bustle of Not Hell surrounds him Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic spreads his arms wide open as if to embrace all that Not Hell might have to offer, looking slowly across its expanse, just really letting it waft over him.  Yeahhhh, yeahhhh.  He could get used to this.  In time it might even feel like home.  It just might.  It really could.  Waiting for some dramatic music to start up and the credits to begin and then a nice slow fade to black.  That would be nice.  Right about now.

"Ey, douche canoe, get in the fucken cab already.  I can get other fares ya know if you just want to stand there monging about like fucken Spidermans on a rooftop and shit.  I got demonlings to feed and if I get home early I got demonlings ta make if ya know what I mean.  Imma fuck my demon wife is what I mean.  Now get your big metally ass in the cab, I got a surprise for ya."

"It's not metal," Dangerrutito mumbles forlornly as his big finish is now ruined, "It's way better than that it's an Aromatic Polyamide Weave over a-"

"Just get in da fucken cab before I Airamatic Polemike ya fucken head in already."

"Cheezus Criminus dese fucken foreigners is all da same.  Fuckin too old for this shit.  Fuckin gas prices...fuckin Union..."

The cabbies cursing continues until he slams the door of his Not Hell Cab shut and drives into Aeternus, eager to drop this jamoke off in a demon bar or demon titty club or demon fight pit or really whatever comes up first that the fella seems to take any interest in.  As the car pulls away into the heavy traffic going to one den of sin or another this post does actually begin a slow dramatic and extremely cinematic fade to black.  It washes over you like a thing which would be very pleasant to have washing over you.

If you turn the volume up you can just barely hear Dangerrutito bitching about how if the cabbie had just waited another minute he could have gotten his proper fade to black ending.  Whether you turned the volume up or not you can definitely hear the cabbie's brakes screeching hard against the Not Brimstone streets.

1x Thank

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BangoSkank Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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Multiversal Police Department of Karate Cops (Who Also Know Kung Fu)

Roald Cliffbloom, Ratling Trailblazer

A former member of the Imperial Guard among a unit of Abhumans, Roald Cliffbloom has found he fits much more comfortably among the Rogue Traders.  As is true for most Ratlings Roald has no home and no real place of belonging.  A people scattered across the cosmos they often find themselves seeking new homes.  A place to create a new civilization, to grow roots, to grow fat and raise children.  To ensure the next generation of Ratlings is free to enjoy all the things their predecessors had enjoyed long long ago before the fall of Ornsworld.  Roald rejects all that shit.  He has decided he rather likes the roaming and takes rather naturally to the roguery.  

Here he finds his restlessness a virtue rather than a particularly obnoxious vice.  Across this vast universe there are always new places to explore, new treasures to acquire, new concoctions to drink, and new women to flirt with.  Occasionally one or two of those ventures may even prove fruitful.

The times of peace, fleeting though they often are, are small treasures but Roald quite enjoys the more violent side of life as a Rogue Trader.  There are so many interesting places to go and so many interesting people and xenos to kill in those interesting places.  Whether he is slowly threading through dense vegetation on some jungle world in an attempt to listen in to what nonsense a group of Orks are mumbling about to each other, or picking his way up a cliffside, wedging himself into cracks and crags to see what nasty surprises might be awaiting everyone around the next rise...it is all so much better than marching about with the Imperial Guard waiting to find out what hopeless battle you're expected to jump into next.

With no home to fight for and little hope of establishing a new home this is what the world offers Roald.  To travel the cosmos looking for interesting places to fight, frolick, fornicate, and maybe try some booze he hasn't had yet and a steak made out of whatever animal is the most dangerous on that planet.  Maybe make a fortune in the process.  That'd be nice.

Krouton "Darkness" Hellspawnen
Death Knight Supreme of the Hateful Metal Knights of New Genocidia.  
Also he hates his dad for some reason.
Some kind of Dark Elf or Orc or something born from tragedy and evil and metal stuff like that.
Definitely not cringe.
Gets more pompous as fights go on but not any stronger.

Unforgiven but instead of being about a cowboy who is just about too old to be a cowboy it's about a cowboy who is fucking RoboCop just blasting the ever living fuck out of some scumbags

Hidden 2 yrs ago → 3 mos ago Post by BangoSkank

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BangoSkank Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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Arena Posts 

Junk-Fist Written by ssseraphim in the Nexus '22 Discord

Taking place in:
A bizarre cartoony macabre Arlen Texas.  EVerything here is bizarrely out of proportion and weird.  It's got this almost two dimensional look to it and the angles of pathways are seemingly impossible but still effortlessly traversable as any normal road.  There's a wildly unsettling vibe to the atmosphere and you can hear distant echoes of sipping beer, Texans saying "Yup," and traffic despite there being no visible cars.

JUNK-FIST

The passageways of this Arlen place were now lined with a myserious foul-smelling black and green-mixed trail of some fluids, viscous like magma yet stuck to the bizarre two-dimensional ground like a snail trail.  Now ridden with flies and maggots no different than any roadkill found on the street, it seemed to be left behind by something actively moving.  It's been a while since Junk-Fist was teleported here. . . He'd now be walking down one of those cartoon walls with a painted tunnel from teh animated cartoon known as Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, hoping to meet at least one living thing in this event.  In all honesty Junk-Fist had been getting a feeling that he was actually sent away from the tournament, believing he's in some weird city off the grids of this world.

"Helloo?!  YO!!  Anyone...there?" He shouted down the weird cartoony tunnel.

DANGER, DANGER FONTAINE

"What in the Tex Avery tarnation is this happy horseshit?"

Danger, Danger Fontaine shouted in response to the figure some ways ahead of him down this darkly colored but somehow still pretty well and perfectly evenly lit tunnel.

"Boy,"  Danger, Danger Fontaine shouted in his best Foghorn Leghorn.

"I say boy!  Is this you son?  Have ya cut the cheese?  D'ye have the Irritatin' Bowels Syndromes?  Have ye got a mean case of the shits?"

He stepped over the putrid snail trail and the three maggots swimming about in it and slapped wildly at one single persistent fly that had taken a liking to him.  Never had a fly fan before.  Couldn't hardly write small enough to sign an autograph for one of them.  Them midget folks was hard enough.  Made for good tossin' though.

"Where we at anywho?  How much further to Albuquerque?"

Danger, Danger Fontaine got a hurry on to catch up with the stinky bastard.  As a professional wrestler he was well acquainted with the concept a personal hygiene.  He would have to introduce this poor young man to it.  Maybe they'd get along.

JUNK-FIST

Junk-Fist focused on the loud and Dangerous Fontaine, gaining up through his snail trail.  The stunken fellow simply stood there as the man up and leghorn'ed his way into his one ear and out the other.

"I knew the trail would be useful" he thought to himself.

"Where are we..?  That tournament's still happening.  Damn..  Albuh...koykee... That probably exists where I'm from... We're probably not there though."

He stared down at the disgusting trail he left behind, a clunky semi-solid that could be seen sliding down his pant-legs and out from under his shirt.  Truly, the sight of the trail's origin was like that of seeing the dark truth of how a restaurant's meats are made.

"So uhm... You must know what you're doing, walking up to a guy like me.  Like a professional.  Those are usually the kinda guys that go after me where I'm from."

His eyes went to Fontaine walking over the fly-ridden trail, now releasing a repugnant odor, turning stronger by the second.  The scent matched that of skunk spray, the contents of a septic tank, and raw sewage... One might think this guy's shitting his pants as he's talking...

DANGER, DANGER FONTAINE

"You're just gonna keep beefin' huh?"

Danger, Danger Fontaine asked as he approached the source of the stink.  Now Danger, Danger Fontaine had fought Shoeless Joel Jacobson and Stinky Sam Smith and Bad Personal Hygiene Bobby P. Henderson.  Hell, Danger, Danger Fontaine had even fought Overpowering Body Odor Billy O'Shaughnessey.  But they all paled in comparison to the sheer malodorous miasma maintained by this man.  The fetid funk of a football teams worth of Super Smash Bros fans.  Ya boy smelled like shit.

"I respect that."

He did not.

"I am a professional.  A professional wrestler,"
Danger continued, striking a needless melodramatic pose.  Arms up for a double biceps pose.  Shit eating grin.  One leg bent and flexed hard.  Neck veins bulging his neck veins veins also bulged.

"You know Pepto-Bismol is good for all kinds of things.  Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset Stomach, Diarrhea."

He said this last bit in a sing song voice for some reason.  The reas on was that Pepto-Bismol was one of his sponsors.

"Pepto-Bismol is one of my sponsors, that's why I sang that just now.  It really does work though."

Danger, Danger Fontaine moved his arm about to show his opponent the Pepto-Bismol branding, then moved lsightly upwind of his funkily fragrant friend,

"Ya know a friend of mine got piledrived.  Piledriven.  Pildri.  He got dumped right on his stupid fucking head this one time.  He done explosive diarrhea'd all up in his tights.  If you watch the footage you can see it.  Suddenly dude is trying to smuggle a football.  Poor fella was hobbling around the rest of the match.  Started leavin' a trail not unlike your own.  No maggots though.  You just migh thave works ya know.  Nasty business.  My dog, Steve Urkel, he had that once."

Danger, Danger Fontaine looked around the deserty landscape.

"Danger, Danger Fontaine my Fetid Friend.  Pleased ta meet ya.  What say we find us a Saloon to have this little scrap.  Maybe some whiskey beforehand.  We could have a few shots.  Maybe you wipe your ass in the bathroom first.  Sound like a good deal?"

Name: Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic
Race: Homo-Superior-As-Fuck
Age:  Like 40 but possessed a 27 year old Future Russian guy

Attributes:

Megalomaniacal: 

Through sheer irrational unreasonable confidence the man known as Danger, Danger Fontaine, prior to his transformation into Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic, was capable of sustaining unreasonable damage and persisting through that damage.  Decades of steroid abuse probably helped too.  The man known as Danger, Danger Fontaine, prior to his transformation into Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic, was able to violate the boundaries of physics and reason and good taste as easily as Bill Clinton does the institution and boundaries and history and that type shit of an Internship by punching harder, kicking also harder, kicking ass also also harder, and just generally being a kick ass muhfuka of a dude.

Banished Bastard Son:

With the loss of his bastard child B-Rad, banished beyond the realms of sight and sound to a twilight zone, sort of like from the television show called The Twilight Zone, the man then known as Danger, Danger Fontaine bent his will toward achieving more power and doing things more Big Leagueier.  Finding that no earthly power could allow him to avenge the loss of his bastard son, and thus his only hope of ever banging his bastard son's mom again (or even remembering what her name was, pretty sure it had an E or an A in it), he sought strength from the stars.  

Eventually doing a lot of totally rad type shit culminating in him astrally projecting himself into the body of some vaguely Future Russian guy in the future.  That guy was also like a Power Ranger or something.  Hard to tell.  But with that new body he did a lot of deep lore type stuff that culminated in him kinda sort rescuing his bastard child's soul but also kinda sorta fusing his bastard child's soul into a Q-Bramble Blade, also known as a Q-BramBlade, but this specific one was named after his dead and banished and soul fused to a sword bastard son B-Rad.  It was named Trilobisekni.

Power Ranger Type Shit:

Future Russian dude was like a Power Ranger, or a God, or Boba Fett, or maybe some kind of tyrannical slave trader or something.  Not really clear on that.  But now Danger, Danger Fontaine is Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic and has a space ship somewhere in the Double Deep Jeiti and also knows a lot of weird words like Jeiti that didn't exist before but now most fully do exist and it's pretty radical.

Equipment:

Trilobisekni:

Neoborhilliumium Manticulated with obnoxious precision into an Q-Bramble blade, sometimes referred to as a Q-Bramblade, polished to an intrinsically implausible sheen, it was his ultimate adytum.  It went by many names.  The Blade of Legend.  The Sword of Myth.  The Katana of Dread.  The Loosener of Shackles.  The Remover of Bras.  The Sabre of the Downtrodden.  The Zweihander of the Einhanded.  Fucking Cool Sword Bro.  Trapped within it the soul of his Bastard Child, B-Rad.  Ever pleading in perfect iambic pentameter to be loosed upon the world.  It's name was Trilobisekni. 

Only one such as he, Dangerrutito Fontaniuxic, could wield such a blade and only with it could any being even dream of performing the famed but also completely unheard of and just super mysterious and secretive manuever known only as the Hiden Doblee Triplut Forbidan Yin Releese Ohm-Mega.

Fontaniuxiciccix 4

Atramentously Vantablack like a hole punched through the otherwise actually quite bright total darkness of deep space, the Fontaniuxiciccix is an Alderson Disk, though Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic sometimes calls it an Alfredo Disk.  An astronomical megastructure with absurd near limitless power, alas Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic broke the key off in the door to the Extra-Genocidal Control Room and is now left with less than an Eighth of its facilities.  That's still a hell of a lot though.  It's like several football fields.  It's mass is probably greater than the mass of your sun unless you have just a super humongous sun.

Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic mostly uses it to store his Zord and equipment and trophies and sometimes have a bitching party or two.  It also has a really nice snack bar.

Aromatic-Polyamide Weave NOT Power Ranger Suit

All scientifical.  Skintight suit of Aromatic-Polyamide Weaved Technical Suit Things.  I cannot over emphasize how tight it is.  You can see like veins and stuff through it it's so tight.  Yet also very resilient.  Excellent at heat dispersal allowing him to just plummet from space onto a planet with naught but the faintest, and slightly arousing, warmth.

Like a Black Power Ranger uniform except it's also like hooked into his brain or suit or soul or something (possibly his ass) so it can change colors and designs at his beck and call.  It's not alive or anything.  Definitely not self aware and slowly consuming his consciousness and biological components for some nefarious future scheme.  That's canon, that it's not doing that.

It also has a Recursive Diolunium Dial.  What purpose it serves is unclear but Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic is forever fiddle fucking around with it.

Panoptic Hex Texx-Gogs

Also known as his Goggles, Goggs, Goggos, Seers, and Oakleys.  They allow him to zoom in, zoom out into Third Person somehow, or "Enhance," whatever that means, and have Night Vision, Thermal Vision, Day Vision, and also a Color Blind mode to ensure full accessibility for the differently abled.

Outfitted with a Xeogenix Toggle allowing him to instantaneously manipulate the Muon Input through the full spectrum of Muu, carefully so as to avoid a full on Muonnic Conclipse.

Thaumic VocoRecordoer

Integrated into his suit or maybe chest or throat or something, it allows Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic to make his voice sound like less of a bitch.  Vital tech.

Special Moves:

Hiden Doblee Triplut Forbidan Yin Releese Ohm-Mega:

 shhhhh, it's a secret 

FUCKIN MORPHIN' TIME BITCHES:

Not quite remembering the series Power Rangers correctly this is the phrase Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic shouts just before doing some weird weebish hand and finger gestures and whistling a tune to summon his Zord.  That is a preposterously large inexplicably humanoid shaped robot that does mostly the same things he does but more biggly.  His soul trapped bastard son sword thing, Trilobisekni, also grows way bigger for reasons that are not self evident.  It also has a gun capable of destroying small planets and/or massive quantities of unarmed civilians if they are all gathered, against their will or otherwise, in a sufficiently small space.  In this form he is known as Dangerrutito Fontainiuxic Mooora Beeeegaruuuuuu.

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Hidden 2 mos ago → 4 days ago Post by BangoSkank

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BangoSkank Halfway Intriguing Halfling

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BangoSkank

Officer Bobo the HoboRoboPopo, also he is a Bonobo

Race: Monke
Age: Too Old For This Shit
Status: Retired

Blood and oil mixed in the streets of Old New Chinatown.  Blood thick and red, oil thin and iridescent.  Both reflecting the pulsing neon lights of a thriving palace fit for worshipping sin and debauchery and other fun weekend activities.  The bodies had long ago been dragged away to be mulched up or buried respectfully or whatever exactly it was they did with dead hookers these days.  

Damn shame.  Them hookers.  They'd been real lookers.  

Large metal feet step slowly, melodramatically through the puddles of water in the alleyway.  It had rained last night.  Did most nights.  More dramatic that way.  Kinda Film Noire like.  That shit was cool.

One boot, neatly polished to a mirror shine.  Black like the soul of the city.  One metal prosthetic monke foot.  Graphite Composite, ergonomic, comes with several different attachments to cover your prosthetic monkey foot needs whether you're chilling on the beach or going to a formal dinner.  

Two chalk outlines gradually fading away.  No one gave a shit about those girls.  Just two more souls lost in this den of sin.  The puddles were quickly eating away at the outer edges of the chalk.  The oil wouldn't mix with the water.  There was probably some kind of metaphor there about the nature of man and all sorts of high minded philosophical type shit.  But Officer Bobo wasn't here to philosophize.  He was here to solve a mystery.

The water and oil wouldn't mix, the water just crept around looking for a way in.  That kept the blood isolated, but it was coagulating.  It would be dried up soon and then the oil would cover it and the water would mix and soon this would just be another stained sidewalk outside a dingy bar and a massage parlor that would massage more than your back if you paid top dollar.  Officer Bobo inserted a Robo-finger into one puddle of blood, sucking it up then screwing off the finger and putting it in his pocket.  He reached into the other pocket, pulled out an empty Robo-finger and did the same with the other blood puddle.  Gotta make sure not to confuse the two pockets.  He was on thin ice after the string cheese incident.

Camera pulls up a little showing an isometric view of Bobo and the crime scene.

Bobo the HoboRoboPop Bonobo pulls a fedora out of another pocket.  Them old timey detective coats are just covered with pockets.  Dusting it off he places it on his monke head, his monke ears sticking way out still.  Because monke.

"I'll find those bastards" he promises himself as he gives the puddles one last look.  No one kills prostitutes in Bobo's district.  Except that guy who killed those two dead prostitutes.  But he would find them.  He just promised himself.

Camera pulls further back and lowers a little so the scene is seen through an alleyway.  Bobo.  Puddles.  Chalk outline nearly gone.  Blood and oil and water all one now.  A grim reminder of just how fa-

Oh shit.  Bobo is jumping around splashing in the puddles.  Well he is a monke.

*End Scene*

Suicide Deluxe

The rain pelted down on the neon-lit streets, creating a reflective sheen on the pavement that mirrored the grim reality of Simian City. The stench of corruption hung in the air like a thick fog, wrapping its greedy tendrils around everything it touched. Bareass Jimmy hadn't felt the weight of a case like this in ages, his fur matted and clinging to his sweaty frame as he trudged through the shadows, searching for answers in a city gone bananas.

The dame who walked into his office wore trouble like a second skin, and it clung to her like a banana cream pie in a monkey's paw. She had legs that went all the way up to her tail, a tail that could wrap around a monkey's heart and squeeze it until it begged for mercy. Her eyes were the color of a moonlit jungle, and they held secrets darker than the deepest pits of the banana mines. She called herself Lola Bananarama, and she had a case that could make even a seasoned detective like Jimminy Chimp peel back the layers of his own sanity.

"Mr. Chimp, I've got a job for you," she purred, her voice smoother than aged whiskey and just as intoxicating. "My husband, Don Banana, has gone missing. The last time I saw him, he was as slippery as a peeled banana in a monkey's hand. I need you to find him, Mr. Chimp. I'll make it worth your while."

Bareass Jimmy squinted through the haze of cigarette smoke that enveloped his office. The dame's story had more holes than a barrel of rotten bananas, but something about the way she said "worth your while" stirred a curiosity deep within him. He took a long drag from his cigarette, the ember glowing like the last flicker of hope in Simian City.

"I'll take the case, doll," he grunted, his voice rougher than a tree bark rubbed the wrong way. "But this city is full of deceit, lies, and dirty monkeys. You better be straight with me, or you'll find yourself knee-deep in a cage at the city zoo."

As Lola Bananarama sashayed out of his office, leaving the lingering scent of her perfume hanging in the air, Bareass Jimmy knew he was in for a wild ride. The trail led him through the twisted alleys of Simian City, where shadows whispered secrets and every monkey had a tail to tell. He questioned low-life informants with names like Two-Timing Tony and Slippery Sam, hoping to peel back the layers of the mystery surrounding Don Banana's disappearance.

The city had become a jungle of crime, with corruption crawling through the branches like a plague of locusts. The streets were littered with the fallen, their bodies sprawled out like discarded banana peels. The deeper Bareass Jimmy delved into the case, the more he realized that the missing Don Banana was just the tip of the iceberg. The city's underbelly was teeming with greed, betrayal, and a thirst for power that would make a king cobra blush.

As he followed the trail of clues, Bareass Jimmy found himself entangled in a web of lies spun by a sinister figure known only as the Monkey Kingpin. This shadowy simian controlled the city's underworld with an iron fist, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Bareass Jimmy knew he was in deep, but he wasn't one to back down. He was a hotshot detective with a reputation for getting to the bottom of things, even if it meant swinging through the darkest corners of Simian City.

The tension in the air was thicker than a monkey's fur in the rainy season as Bareass Jimmy approached the Monkey Kingpin's lair. The rain had subsided, leaving the city glistening with the remnants of the storm. Lightning flashed in the distance, revealing the silhouette of a hulking ape perched on a throne of stolen bananas. The Monkey Kingpin turned to face Bareass Jimmy, a sinister grin spreading across his face like a monkey with a secret stash of stolen treats.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Bareass Jimmy," the Monkey Kingpin sneered, his voice dripping with malice. "You've been poking your nose where it doesn't belong, detective. This city belongs to me, and anyone who crosses my path ends up as monkey chow."

Bareass Jimmy squared his shoulders, his nerves replaced by a steely resolve. "I've seen my fair share of dirty monkeys in this city, but you're the filthiest of them all, Kingpin. Don Banana's disappearance is just the beginning. Your reign of terror ends tonight."

The tension in the air reached a breaking point as the two simians faced off in a showdown that would determine the fate of Simian City. Lightning flashed, illuminating the glint of a hidden blade in the Monkey Kingpin's paw. Bareass Jimmy knew that this would be a fight for the ages, a battle between good and evil in a city gone bananas.

As the first punches were thrown, the rain began to fall again, washing away the sins of Simian City. The streets would never be the same, but Bareass Jimmy had peeled back the layers of corruption and exposed the dark heart of the Monkey Kingpin. The city might still be a jungle, but at least the bananas were a little sweeter without the taste of treachery lingering in the air.

With the Monkey Kingpin defeated and the rain-soaked streets finally breathing a sigh of relief, Bareass Jimmy emerged from the shadows of the city, his fur matted and his fedora pulled low over his eyes. He had left a trail of chaos behind him, but justice had been served in Simian City. As he walked through the desolate streets, he couldn't shake the feeling that the city's troubles ran deeper than even he could fathom.

In the heart of the city, he stumbled upon a dimly lit alley, the kind that seemed to swallow the light whole. It was there, amid the flickering neon signs and the distant hum of the city, that Bareass Jimmy encountered a peculiar figure – Bobo The RoboHoboPopo Banobo. The metallic sheen of Bobo's limbs glinted in the faint light, and the whir of gears replaced the usual sounds of the urban jungle.

"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. It's Bobo. You know these are my streets now. You were supposed to retire!"

BangoSkank

Of all the rundown prostitute bloodied back alleys he had to walk down this one.  Bareass Jimmy.  New monke on the beat.  Big Time Bareass as they called him.  Well as Bobo called him.  When he was drunk in the BoboMobile.  Parked along the river.  In his underwear.  Listening to Motley Crue.  Solving the mystery of what lay in the bottom of a bottle.  Another case solved.

"I'm too old for this Bareass, looks like you are too.  Two dead tarsiers.  Barely out of their teens.  Tragic."

Bobo, the HoboRoboPopo Bonobo, gestures toward the rapidly vanishing remnants of the chalk outline as a few last flakes of still dry chalk are lifted up by the water, oil, and blood, and slowly become sodden and disappear beneath the surface.

"You wouldn't know anything about that would you, Jimmy?"

Bobo had been hearing rumors.  The streets had ears.  And lips.  Not literal ones, it's a metaphor.  Word on the street was Bareass Jimmy could be Bought in a Jiffy.  That's a metaphor too.  And maybe not true.  It would be just like those lowlife local chimps to try and turn the department against itself.  

Still.  It was awful convenient.  Bareass Jimmy happening upon this scene just now, just after Bobo had secured potential DNA evidence.  Maybe he was meant to stop Bobo.  Bobo narrowed his eyes and his monke ears flattened against the sides of his monke head.

"No evidence left when I got here," it was a fib and Momma Chee Chee ain't raise no fool and it just might save his tail, "Who you thinking?  KongPin?  Don Banana?  Ol' One Paw?  Hairless George?  BattleChimp Potemkin?"

Babbling so, but also trying to gather intel, Bobo the HoboRoboPopo Bonobo tries to casually assess the scene.  Dumpsters.  Trash cans.  Wet oily asphalt.  Fire escapes.  Lots of doors, probably largely locked.  Pallets resting against walls.  Lots of potential weapons.  Lots of escape routes.  If those two tarsier tarts were a little stronger they might have gotten away...wait...surely they could have...

Suicide Deluxe

Bobo, the HoboRoboPopo Bonobo, seemed to be eying Bareass Jimmy with suspicion, his metallic limbs reflecting the dim light of the alley. The rain continued to pour, washing away Simian City's sins, but the crime scene's stench lingered like a bad banana. 

"Bobo," Jimmy grunted, his fedora pulled low over his eyes, "I ain't got time for your robo-doubts. I stumbled upon this mess, just like I stumbled upon your rusty self."

Jimmy took a deep breath, the air heavy with the scent of wet fur and blood, and launched into the tale of the Monkey Kingpin's demise.

"You see, the Kingpin thought he could rule this city with an iron paw. But Bareass Jimmy don't take orders from no one, especially not a dirty monkey with delusions of grandeur. I followed the trail, peeled back the layers of deceit, and it led me straight to the Kingpin's lair."

The rain continued its rhythmic dance on the pavement, drowning out the distant sounds of the city.

"Things got hairy, Bobo. The Kingpin wasn't alone. He had his goons, his lackeys, all ready to protect their banana-obsessed boss. But Jimmy ain't one to back down. We clashed like a couple of enraged gorillas in the concrete jungle, fists flying, fur flying, and bananas going squish underfoot."

Jimmy paused, reliving the intensity of the showdown. The memory of the Monkey Kingpin's sinister grin and the glint of his hidden blade sent shivers down his spine.

"But in the end, it was just me and the Kingpin. The rain-soaked streets were the witness to our final dance.  He went down harder than a chimpanzee on a slip 'n slide, and Simian City can breathe a little easier now."

"Now, I don't expect you to believe me, Bobo. You're a cynical piece of machinery, and I respect that. But you can check the Kingpin's lair yourself. You'll find his rotting corpse, a fitting end for a dirty monkey who thought he could rule this city with fear and corruption."

Jimmy met Bobo's gaze, his eyes wearing a mix of weariness and determination. The rain continued its relentless descent, the drops tapping a chaotic rhythm on the metal surfaces around them.

"You might be a RoboHoboPopo, but you ain't above the law, Bobo. I did what needed to be done. Now, if you want to keep playing detective, we can do it together. But if you're gonna stand there doubting every word I say, you might as well find a new alley to rust in."

With that, Jimmy sparked up a banana-flavored cigarillo, the waterlogged fur on his back sticking uncomfortably. The city may be a jungle of crime, but he had just pruned one of its most poisonous vines.

BangoSkank

"That was a nice speech Jimmy.  Real nice.  I like the cut of your jib see.  Sounds like you had a proper dust up in there with that no good two timing monkey's uncle."

He hadn't liked the rust cracks.  It was a real problem.  You wouldn't believe the lengths a monkey gotta go to to get some some Brasso out here.  Specially one like Bobo.  A HoboRoboPopo Bonobo, down on his luck?  

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...

One look at him and they assume he's deep in his cups.  Full blown alcoholic ape.  Swinging from the chandeliers.  Riding in the pink elephant parade.  Probably the ringleader.  With a little hat.  Maybe pedaling a tricycle.  Maybe juggling.  Or playing a little fucking drum like on of those stupid little drummer monkey toys.  Fuck Bobo hated those.  So stereotypical...oh shit...Bobo had lost his train of thought.

Distract from his distraction.  That hadn't happened.  All part of the plan.  Yeah yeah.  Part of the plan.

Bobo smiles really sly like.  Like a real wise ape, and pulls out a little smoke of his own.  Big shit eating grin stretching out across his face. 

"Genuine Congos Jimmy," he explains pulling an oddly thick yellow cigar from one of his many old timey detective coat pockets and lighting it up.  It takes a bit.  He'd have to explain.

"It takes a bit," Bobo explained.

His thoughts returning to the rust.  The fucking rust.  So hard to get out.  You had to use Brasso.  That was the ticket.  But they'd never sell it to Bobo.  Too worried he'd start making Brass Monkeys.  Never liked those.  Whiskey and Brasso, they tasted like ass-o.  Too funky those Brass Monkeys.

"Genuine banana peel," he mumbled around the cigar, fiddle fucking with his old lighter until it finally sparked up.  

Bobo takes a deep draw, surprised to be enjoying a moment with the New Chimp on the Block, and decides to give a little respect where it's due.  Old chimps can still learn new tricks right?

"You can be a pain in my ass Jimmy, I miss the force, never should retired shoulda died with my boots on...well my robo-boots on...doesn't have the same sound to it...."

Bobo wasn't good at this whole compliment thing.

Walking up to the young Buck and doing a little Smokey smoke trick, inhaling through the mouth and out through the nose Bobo fidgeted with his badge before finally putting a little compliment together.

"Good work Jimmy.  Sending that cretinous Kingpin to the Big Banana Boat in the sky.  That's some good work."

It wasn't much of a compliment.  Bobo was really more for the solo work.  

Bobo the HoboRoboPopo Bonobo Preferred To Go Solo.

In the near future though he would be happy to have company.  As while he was making that little rhyme in his head about preferring to go solo some monkey rat bastard had whipped a bottle of Howler Head straight at his head.

He was lucky it had only dislodged his hat...but there were four of them and they looked pissed.

As their eyes shifted from Bobo to Bareass and then to the bare spot where the tarsier tarts had been dumped Bobo had no doubt things were about to get interesting.

SuicideDeluxe

Bareass Jimmy took a long drag from his  banana flavored cigarillo, watching Bobo fumble with his cigar and rust issues. The rain continued its persistent drumming, but the tension in the alley seemed to rise with the smoke.

"Well, Bobo, you might need some Brasso for those rust problems, but I've got a different kind of polish for the streets of Simian City. It's called justice," Jimmy replied, the corners of his mouth curling into a wry smile.

He listened as Bobo rambled about Brass Monkeys and his reluctance to retire, a sentiment Jimmy could understand. The streets had a way of calling you back, even when you thought you were done.

"Yeah, retirement's for chimps who've lost their edge. You and I, we've still got a few swings in the trees left in us," Jimmy said, giving a nod of agreement.

As Bobo complimented him on taking down the Monkey Kingpin, Jimmy couldn't help but appreciate the rare moment of camaraderie. He flicked his cigarillo into a puddle, the ember fizzling out as he turned his attention to the approaching trouble.

"Thanks, Bobo. But it looks like we've got company," he said, noting the angry eyes of the approaching simians.

Jimmy cracked his knuckles, a grin spreading across his face like a monkey who'd just found a banana stash. The rain-soaked streets were about to witness another showdown, and Bareass Jimmy was ready for whatever the city had to throw at him.

5 Years Prior

Bareass Jimmy's mind briefly drifted back to a time when the rain-soaked streets were replaced by the polished halls of the Simian City Police Academy. It was a memory that crept in like a shadow, a flashback to the day he graduated from the academy. As he stood on the stage, freshly minted badge pinned to his chest, the applause of the audience echoed in his ears.

Among the sea of familiar faces, Jimmy's eyes had caught a glimpse of an unusual figure in the audience. Bobo, the HoboRoboPopo Bonobo, was there, his metallic limbs standing out like a silver beacon in a sea of uniformed chimps. Jimmy remembered the distinct hum of gears and the clink of metal against metal as Bobo offered a salute of respect, a gesture that stood out amidst the cheers and claps of the crowd.

At the time, Jimmy had been a rookie, full of idealism and the burning desire to make Simian City a better place. Bobo's presence had been a mystery, a symbol of the city's quirks and unspoken tales. Little did Jimmy know that their paths would cross again, that he'd find himself in a rain-soaked alley, facing down trouble with the same Bonobo who had acknowledged his graduation.

The memory flashed like lightning, illuminating the connection between the seasoned detective and the old RoboHoboPopo. In the chaos of the present, Jimmy couldn't help but appreciate the strange twists that fate had woven into the fabric of Simian City.

"Let's show these punks that the streets of Simian City are no place for monkey business," Jimmy declared, his fedora tilted low as he stepped forward to face the oncoming storm. The rain, the rust, and the echoes of the Monkey Kingpin's demise all converged in this dark alley, where justice swung like a vine, unpredictable and fierce.

As the first bottle sailed through the air, Jimmy's instincts kicked in. He ducked and weaved, his movements fluid like a monkey in the treetops. The bottle smashed against the wall, shards scattering like fallen leaves.

"Looks like the party's just getting started, Bobo," Jimmy called over his shoulder, ready to dance through the rain-soaked chaos of Simian City once again.

BangoSkank

Can't teach an old homeless robot monkey new tricks.  Pretty sure that was how the saying went.  It was an apt if oddly specific bit of wisdom.  Maybe when Bobo was neither Hobo nor Robo he could have dipped ducked and dodged like that.  Not anymore.  He swiped at the bottle that came his way.  Not quick enough to grab it or agile enough dodge it, but he was able to redirect it.  Slightly.

The bottle crashed against the wall and splintered into a thousand shards of glass.  Like the shattered hopes of the this teenaged tars-

A wet thud as another bottle cracked hard against the fleshy side of Bobo's head.  Cut his scalp, cut his lip, and it hurt too.

He shook it off and a devious grin spread across his face as the blood dripped down.  Shiny white teeth bared, though the white gradually reddened as his split lip leaked crimson.

Bobo was vaguely aware of the two chimps that were converging on Bareass Jimmy and the bandana wearing orangutan jumping from one fire escape to another as it made its way down to the alley.  That would be trouble.  Later.  Bareass could handle his shit.  Bobo had trouble all his own.

Three chimps.  The two bottle throwers a bit further back but a third very much in Bobo's face.  Performing a dropkick.  At his face.  Bobo didn't have time to do much of anything but take the hit in his chest and bounce against the wall.

"Oww," Bobo replied.

Then it was on.

Dropkick Murphy, as Bobo named the Dropkicking Monkey, did a little breakdance spin kick move to get up off the alley floor after landing that dropkick.  It was pretty impressive.  But he made a fatal mistake.

Dropkick Murphy bent down to retrieve his goofy little Boston Irish hat.  Not nearly as nice a hat as Bobo's and certainly not worth the beating Bobo laid out.  As Dropkick Murphy bent down to retrieve his scally cap Bobo grabbed him by the ears and swung him bodily against the wall, then as Dropkick Murphy scrambled to regain his footing while gripping the bleeding sides of his head Bobo snap kicked him hard with a mighty metallic monkey foot.  Trapped between a wall and a MechaMonkey Dropkick Murphy could do little in the near future but whimper and wail and wish he'd shipped out to Boston.

The other two chimps paused a second to assess if their monkey mate was dead or just injured, allowing Bobo to get a head on the orangutan who was now just hanging off the side of one of the fire escapes hooting and hollering and gesturing around with those long orangutan arms of his.  Weird fucker.

As the other two chimps decided they couldn't do much for their mangled monkey mate Murphy Bobo reached for a small step ladder and prepared himself.  He'd seen Rumble in the Bronx before.  He had an idea.

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