[CHAR] The Octopus: A 19th Century Political/Crime RP

[Byrd Man]

Character Sheet

Name: Robert Thomas Stockton

Age: 59

Ethnicity: American (British descent)

Occupation/Place in the Combination: United States Senator/Advisor

Personal History:

The story of Bob Stockton is the story of American success. Born in 1817, Stockton's father was a veteran of the War of 1812 who moved west to seek his fortune. The state was still a territory when the Stockton family arrived in the small town of Center and set out as cattle farmers. The Stockton's made a modest living and Bob was prepared to learn the trade from his father when the Panic of 1837 changed everything. The depression ruined the elder Stockton's farm and business prospects. Heavily in debt and depressed, he took his own life. At twenty years old, Bob became the man of the house. The burden of supporting his mother and six brothers and sisters fell upon him.

Bob worked three jobs -- as a saloon floor sweeper, house painter, and general store clerk -- all while reading law at the offices of William "Bill" Patterson, a prominent local attorney. It was there that Bob met Bill's son A.J., an apprentice reading law as well. The two young men formed a fast friendship based on their mutual outlooks on life and fierce ambition. In 1840, Bob and A.J. passed the state bar and started Stockton & Patterson Attorneys at Law. The practice thrived in both criminal and civil cases. A.J. thrived in criminal court, representing the lowest class the city had, while Bob showed his talent as a representative of the growing special interests in the renamed Central City. The men were soon making money hand over fist and establishing connections from every facet of urban life.

In 1852, A.J. and Bob used their connections to get into the political game. Mayor Anthony Scott, the long-serving political boss of the city, was toppled by the two upstarts who used a coalition of poor ethnic voters and wealthy American businessmen to toss Scott and his city council cronies out of office and replace them with men loyal to A.J. and Bob. The Patterson Combination was born. The machine's power grew out from Central City and took over the statehouse. While A.J. preferred to work behind the scenes, Bob liked the spotlight and used the Combination's power to his advantage. In 1860, Bob ran and won a seat in Congress by capturing 99% of the vote in his district. He served for ten years, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, before he saw a greater prize. In 1870, the Combination controlled state legislature elected Bob to the US Senate. The man who had once worked eighteen hour days to provide for his family was now one of the most powerful men in the state and the entire West.

Now, Bob is ending his first term in the US Senate and is coming home to stand for reelection. As A.J.'s closest lieutenant, he helps the Combination plan its moves for the upcoming election season that will be hotly contested by reform candidates in both the city and the state. Michael Wood, the state's current governor, ha made his intention known that he wishes to take Bob's seat in the Senate. In addition, presidential politics may be coming into play as the party convention comes to Central City to elect a president. For a man who has achieved so much, Bob sees a path to the White House could be easily within his grasp if he can play his cards just right.

[Byrd Man]

Character Sheet

Name: Officer Daniel Shea

Age: 25

Ethnicity: Irish (1st generation American migrant)

Occupation/Place in the Combination: Police officer

Personal History:

Danny Shea is the son of Captain Thomas Shea, an Irish immigrant who has used his political skills to rise in the Central City PD and amass great influence inside the Combination. Danny is the middle child of the family, his brother Joseph is an assistant district attorney while youngest son Matthew is away at college. Despite being from a family of wealth and influence, Danny has steadfastly held to the determination to be his own man and make his own path separate from his father. He lives across town from the Shea house in the city's westside in a neighborhood filled with new German, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants.

He patrols the westside twelve hours a day, six days a week, and is faced with the harsh realities of urban life. As a member of the police department, he is unwillingly part of the city's political machine. He considers himself nonpartisan, but still is forced to donate a portion of his pay to the Combination and take part in partisan acts for the sake of keeping his job and pleasing his father. He wants to rise and become a detective, but only on his own merits and not because of who his father is or what he could do for the machine.

[Sypherkhode822]

Name: Morris Cohen

Age: 43

Ethnicity: German Jew

Occupation/Place in the Combination: Ward Boss of the Jewish West Side

Personal History: Having emigrated to America as a child, Morris was raised in Central's 'Uptown' West Side. He had an ordinary upbringing in the German Jewish community, attending synagogue regularly. Morris was always a sociable fellow, and belonged to numerous clubs and organizations, fundraising among the German Jewish community for sponsoring a group of 'poor Russians' to immigrate to Ottoman Palestine and settle an agricultural commune there. Morris is especially talented at persuasion, quoting from the Torah and Talmud to convince others to give money. Although the commune folds two years after it's founding due to continued ideological grievances between the anarchist and the social democratic factions of the commune, Morris counts it as a personal success. Leaving the dry goods store to his brother, Abraham, Morris takes up politics as his profession, integrating himself into the Combination. Morris is successful with courting the German Jewish vote, handily winning their votes for the Combination. With the growing trend of new Russian immigrants arriving from the Pale, Morris has had to start to adapt, but so far his strategies have proven effective. The only other politics these greenhorns know about is socialism, but that's such a joke that nobody is ever going to listen to that except for a few bozos, right? Besides, all Morris has to do is play up his faithfulness to the new Orthodox crowds, convince a couple factory owners to let them have Saturday off instead of Sunday, and they love him!

[Dinh AaronMk]

Name: Edward Mayer

Age: 28

Ethnicity: German-American

Occupation/Place in the Combination: Outside, Labor Agitator/Anarchist

Personal History: Born on the passage over from Germany, Edward Mayer was the first of five children born to a young German couple fleeing Europe in 1849. Fleeing the continent towards the end of the March Revolution. Being liberals and socialists, they feared for their safety and that of the then pregnant Claire Mayer, Edward's mother when the governments of Germany eventually cracked down. Edward's father, a doctor named Amadeus was confident that when they landed in New York that he may begin a practice and carve out a living in the new land.

However, landing in New York Amadeus had no such luck and as the mixture of fortune and misfortune would have it, the family chose to move west to the promising Central City west of the Mississippi river. At the age of five, Edward was moved with his family from the East Coast to the American interior. Not going straight into Central City though, the family put down roots in a small farmstead forty-miles outside Central City where off and on Amadeus practiced as a country doctor while trying to tend to a small farm.

The family began their move proper into Central City after the American Civil War, in part taking advantage of the growing city offering up more advantages as it swelled with immigrants moving west and freed blacks moving north. Amadeus too had managed to save up from his practice, and moving the family into Downtown set up a practice between the Irish and German neighborhoods where they also lived.

Edward for his part was mostly homeschooled before moving into the city. Largely educated in German from the few odd books the family managed to bring over from Germany and acquired in New York, the young Edward spoke with a soft if noticeable accent compared to children of his own age. Edward only really coming to learn English through attending church. Yet despite the language handicap he had in his early years, he was a bright kid and read voraciously and studied under his father on occasion.

His favorite subjects when he became a teenager turned from learning to emulate his father as a doctor to politics and philosophy and he discovered and read Proudhon, Marx, and Engels in particular.

At the age of nineteen Edward seemed to openly forsake his otherwise middle-class upbringing and left for the east side of town, for close to six years he bounced between jobs at the factories and stockyards exploring the capitalist-industrialist framework of what he realized was the future to come. The conditions of the working man in the factories and the conditions they suffered at the expense of the factory boss's whims greatly effected him as he went in with the ideas of Proudhon and Marx in his head.

Though while he came to see and understand the disaffection of the American worker, he later came to discover the underground labor movement in Central City and that his thoughts were exactly his alone and that there were others who believed at least similar to him; if not just like him.

[aviendha]

Name: Olivia Dawson, née Anika Popov

Age: 28

Ethnicity: Russian/Indian

Occupation/Place in the Combination: Professional Divorcee, No official position

Personal History: Olivia's parents emigrated when she was a toddler, and she grew up on the West Side. Her Russian father fell into debt with the wrong people- Olivia never knew the details, but it was she who found his body. Her mother, an Indian seamstress who spoke little English, died of heart failure mere days later. The fifteen year old Olivia came into a small inheritance, just enough to buy a few costumes; the sorts of things the politicians' wives would wear, complete with jewelry and pretty new shoes, and a new name. An unknown face, with an odd accent and a seemingly ambiguous ethnicity, she seamlessly inserted herself into the lower ranks of the social ladder. A Precinct Captain took a liking to the girl, and kept her as a side girl for a little while. As soon as he decided to run for political office, though, he discarded Olivia without a thought. A week or so later, she was hitched with his closest rival, who won the position. However, she didn't stay long, after she met another man, of slightly better power.

Since the age of sixteen, Olivia has bounced from fling to fling, some approaching seriousness. Twelve times, she has been engaged. Only once has the wedding actually come to pass- giving her the chance to steal a new surname. Her relationships end when her partner approaches failure, or defies her recommendations. They end in moments of dissidence and strife, and sometimes, a few end in her partners' deaths. She is seen by the public as a pretty face, tossed from success story to the next; to the people holding power, she is nothing but a little pretty object. However, to those who have fallen for her, or rather, entered a business agreement with her, she is a reliable source of information, and suggestion. She may not hold any real power, but her abilities lie in her manipulations of the men she claims to love.