Byrd Man

Saloon City -- A Rural Noir RP

Sounds good. You rock on with your world building.

Saloon City -- A Rural Noir RP

Pickett County, SC
February 21st, 1925


Mark's breath curled from his mouth and evaporated into the early morning sunlight. His coat was a hand-me down from Matt, who got it from their father years earlier, and had holes in the collar that made it pretty useless against a stiff breeze. He rubbed his hands together for warmth while he watched Luke pouring the 'shine from the tap and into the large clay jug. The latest batch in the still had been cooking since yesterday afternoon, with both brothers taking shifts to stir and keep the fire underneath the mash going. Luke took the jug from under the tap and killed the flow before he took a long swig of the hooch.

"Goddamn," Luke said with a violent cough. "That's some good 'shine."

Mark smiled and got the jug from his brother. He took a small sip and felt the powerful mash flow down his throat and set his mouth and chest on fire. Just a small swig and Mark, who never could hold his liquor like Luke, had his head buzzing. He shook his head and passed it back to Luke before wiping the excess moonshine from his lips. Only their third batch as moonshiners and it was stronger than even old T-Hound's concentrated hooch.

"We need to get all this bottled" Mark told his brother as he pulled a crate full of jugs from underneath the still.

"I'll head into town and talk to Coochiebug tomorrow, tell him we got a certified batch of white lightning. He'll get word out to the rest of the folks and they'll come running to the store."

Mark took another sip off the jug while Luke poured the contents of their still into the bottles and jugs in the crate. The moonshine warmed him to the point to where he could barely feel the cold anymore. The buzz he felt seeped through his whole body and made him feel euphoric. He laughed to himself, but it was loud enough for Luke to hear him.

"What?"

"Know what this means?"

"What's what mean?"

"This means, baby brother, that we are officially in the moonshine business."

Luke let out a rebel yell and picked up the pace on filling up the bottles.

Saloon City -- A Rural Noir RP

Word(s) to your mama. FIrst IC post is forthcoming.

A Soldier and a Journalist in the middle of nowhere.

Hey, Dutch, you're a great writer and it's hard finding someone on here who seems to be interested in doing something military/history related, so I'd be interested, I just don't know if you'd want another guy since a lot of 1x1s seem to always be male and female.

Saloon City -- A Rural Noir RP

“Prohibition has made nothing but trouble”
-- Al Capone

Saloon City
A DotCom & Byrd Man Joint


The year is 1925, America is in the middle of the "Roaring Twenties" and life is good for most of the country. In rural South Carolina, it may as well still be the 1820's. There are no paved roads in the small county of Pickett, few cars, and only some homes in the counties one town have electricity. The high times and easy money are nowhere to be found in this land of sharecroppers and mill workers. The one thing Pickett has in common with New York? Prohibition of all alcoholic beverages. Pickett, though, is unlike most of religious and temperate Upstate South Carolina. The town, situated across the river from two dry Georgia counties, once had so many bars and liquor stores it was called Saloon City. With the Volstead Act shutting Saloon City down legally, several people took it upon themselves to make sure the county stayed wet. Dead in name, Saloon City continues to operate in spirit all throughout Pickett County. With competing factions all trying to get the good people's hard earned money, it seems only a matter of time before blood replaces liquor as the chief liquid running through the streets.

Cast:

Byrd

Matthew Norman - 30 - Oldest Norman sibling, Matt served in the Great War. He returned back home to Pickett briefly and headed up north three years ago to find work.

Mark Norman - 28- Oldest of the three Norman brothers in Pickett, owner and operator of Norman's General Store (Formerly Harry's Saloon), and chief moonshiner and bootlegger in Pickett

Luke Norman -25- Second oldest brother and Mark's partner in the general store and moonshining business. The muscle of the two brothers, Luke is the one who hurts people we need be.

John Norman -19- Youngest of the Norman boys and one of three police officers working with the Pickett County Sheriff's Department, under the watchful eye of his uncle Henry Norman .

Dot

James “Jacky” Avett – 31 – Oldest child of recently deceased William Avett and hard-nosed local police officer for something something. Loyal to the force, with a massive soft spot for family.

Willa Avett – 31 – Second oldest child of Bill Avett, three minutes younger than her twin brother, Jack. Inherited her father’s still and a deep-seated vendetta against the Norman family.

Violet “Vi” Avett – 25 – Third child and the middle of Bill Avett’s cherished, rough and tumble daughters. Current runner for her sister’s business, resident troublemaker. Bit of a pyromaniac.

Katherine “Kitty” Avett – 17 – Youngest of the Avett children. Inherited her mother’s haunting beauty, an apparent parting gift as the birth killed the mother and left the child mute. Incredibly smart, particularly with numbers, and stubborn. Unofficial family accountant.

Independent Comics Universe RPG

So much for my Donkey Kong sheet...

Independent Comics Universe RPG

Now I want to play Uncle Ruckus. You see what you've done?

Independent Comics Universe RPG

Well, that's pretty goddamn amazing.

Independent Comics Universe RPG

Chapter 3
Golden Triangle

Yangon
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar
2132 Local Time

Tara had only been to Myanmar once before and she hated every minute of it. The country, formerly called Burma, had been part of the British Raj during the height of the mighty British Empire. If India was the shining jewel of the Raj, then Burma had always been a pearl that wasn't worth the time or effort to polish up. The only thing that seemed worth a damn in Burma was the opium trade, which thrived to this day and made Myanmar one of the largest producers of opium and heroin in the world. The country overall constituted nothing but poor farmers with very little industry that wasn't worth the time or investment. It was such a non-entity during the Second World War that the Allies were content with dragging their feet with the Japanese while millions of starved Burmese. After the War when the British Empire was finally in its death rattle, Burma became its own country known as Myanmar. It soon became a socialist military dictatorship and, despite the American's love of land wars with Asian communist, they did very little for fifty years while the dictatorship ruled. Another sign that nobody really seemed to care about the country or its people.

With the general apathy towards all things Burmese, Tara found it very appropriate that she would end up in Myanmar on a mission that SIS viewed as second-rate. Steed and Peele were in Yemen, searching for the terrorist who started the whole mess that the British and Americans were involved in. She was on stakeout duty, looking for a hacker. Granted this hacker was impressive, one didn't just hack into a CIA satellite and remote control a drone strike on accident, but this job could have easily been done by Six's local station staff. But sending 00's on all fronts showed the Americans that the British were fully committed to fixing this fuck up.

Three days since an American drone strike had killed the president of Yemen, and the Yemeni people along with most of the Arab world were rioting outside US embassies. Internet traffic pointed to an increase in militant jihadist recruitment across the entire region. The whole intelligence community was certain an attack on an embassy somewhere was imminent. The politicians in Washington, specifically those not part of the president's party, were calling for congressional committees and presidential impeachment. The blowback for the British wasn't as bad, but it would severely damage their so-called special relationship with the United States if it was discovered their intelligence had been faulty and led to the accidental assassination.

Tara sat in the ratty motel room beside the window and watched the three story walk-up apartment through the slit in the blinds. Two and a half days sitting on the location, and she had yet to see anything. The gadgets Q Branch sent with her had failed to detect any electronic signals or signs of life inside the apartment she was watching. The presence of a western female with blonde hair was bound to attract attention if she conducted the stakeout on foot, so instead she used the QRT for on the ground operations. SIS's Quick Response Team was a small four man team made up of former SAS members like herself. They worked as a unit and carried out more military inclined tasks than the 00's, although rank dictated they were junior to any 00's working in the field. Nick Poole, 006, had been pulled from the QRT and given 00 status, and Tara herself had been training for the QRT when she was given a chance to go out for a 00 spot.

"007 to QRT," Tara said into the walkie talkie in her hands. "Sound off. Give me a sit-rep, lads."

"Bravo Leader here and I got nothing," said squad leader Captain Price. Tara looked through the window and saw Price in the shadows beside a parking garage, blending in with the concrete and oil stains.

"Bravo Two, same here," Price's number two, MacTavish said, from his vantage point on a roof beside Tara's motel.

"Bravo Three, and I don't see a thing."

"Bravo Four, and all I see is a dog taking the largest shit I've ever seen. Seriously, looks like it's bigger than him."

"Maybe we can name that turd Brass Angel, Gaz?" Price asked with a wry chuckle.

"I second that," said Tara. "Stay on your positions and keep your wits about you." Tara sighed and looked at her watch before continuing. "If I don't get any movement in the house by midnight, we're going in."

Tara put the walkie talkie down and lit up a cigarette to wait. Most people had an image of the spy game inside their head and this wasn't it. The job wasn't martinis and exploding pens anymore, it was waiting and watching and maybe taking action. Nearly sixty hours of stakeout here would lead to maybe a minute of action when she and the QRT raided the house, and that would just be a routine sweep that would more than likely lead to a dead end.

"I think I see something," MacTavish reported at twenty to midnight. "Male Caucasian wearing a trench coat, appears to be two meters tall."

"I see him," Tara replied, stubbing out her sixth cigarette of the night. There were only two other tenants in the entire apartment building, two elderly Burmese women who went out in the morning and stayed inside the rest of the day. The man heading towards the stairs didn't seem like the type to call on either of the old men. The trench coat was the wrong type of dress for hot and muggy Yangon. He carried a satchel marked with a golden triangle on the side. Tara took note of how he walked, how he carried himself, and any other features that would make her remember him. She saw his scarred face and stopped cold as he disappeared into the stairwell leading to the third floor.

"Fucking hell... Fucking hell!"

Tara jumped up from her seat and pulled her Glock from her luggage and checked it was fully loaded and ready to go. She put in her wireless earpiece and connected to the channel with the QRT.

"007 to QRT. Move in on the house and the man. It's Gareth Carlyle, gents."

"Fucking hell, three of the men said almost at once.

"I know," she said as she tucked the gun into her waistband. "SIS public enemy #1. I want him taken alive if possible, but remember who he is and do not hesitate to put him down if need be."

"Wait, who is this guy?" Bravo Three asked nervously.

Tara was already out of her motel room and bounding down the stairs.

"He's a traitor and terrorist. Before that? He was my predecessor as 007."

Independent Comics Universe RPG

The Cheetah Room
Center City, WA
11:14 PM

Tracy hated himself. It wasn't for the usual reasons one engaged in self-loathing. It wasn't because he was broke. On the contrary, he had more money that he could hope to spend. It wasn't because of his looks, despite the bad burn on his neck from Iraq he looked passable and never heard any complaints from the women he brought home. It wasn't because of his station in life. He was the number one man of Center City's biggest crime boss, a place many men would give their left nut for. Tracy hated himself because he was becoming his old man. Like Teeg Lawless, Tracy was seen as one of the baddest motherfuckers in all of Center City, someone you avoided at all costs if you liked breathing. Like Teeg, Tracy's power was an illusion. It was a gifted granted to him by old man Hyde's seemingly on a whim. Tracy knew he was feared and respected as long as Hyde allowed it. And that made him sicker than anything. He wanted to avoid becoming Teeg, wanted to avoid this city all together, but some dumbass mistakes led him right back to Center City and right under Hyde's thumb.

The Cheetah Room was part of Hyde's benevolent streak. The strip club was a gift to Tracy that was a pretty shitty gift. Tracy got a ten percent cut of the profits for managing it for Hyde. Managing the club meant having to deal with all the headaches nobody wanted to. Most guys out of the loop thought running a strip club entailed lapdances and blowjobs gratis. Instead Tracy had to listen to the strippers' drama and get sucked into the day to day tragedies that were their lives. Think of dealing with hormonal teenage girls, crying all over the place and hating each other and themselves... only all the girls have big fake silicone titties Added to getting caught up into their personal shit, Tracy also had to make sure none of the girls of other staff dealt drugs of gash on the side. Hyde approved of the girls hooking and pushing blow, but only as long as he got his cut.

Tracy was taking Hyde's cut of the action that night, sitting in the backroom with Gingy, the closest thing this diseased hellhole had to an assistant manager. Gingy was over fifty with bright red hair that came out of a bottle. She wore cowboys butts and tight jeans with black t-shirts. She looked every bit of the butch bull dyke that she was. While Tracy didn't take advantage of the girls, Gingy was known on occasion to shack up with a few of the sapphicly inclined strippers. Gingy counted out Hyde and Tracy's cuts in twenties, a menthol cigarette hanging out of her mouth with half a cigarette's worth of ash dangling off the tip.

"That's 1,000," she said after counting out fifty twenties that went into Tracy's pile.

She dumped the ashes and started on another set of twenties when the burner cell in Tracy's pocket went off. He looked at the number and knew something was up. Hyde was usually in bed this late at night, and he rarely ever called.

[i]"My office. Now"[/i"

The line went dead. Tracy closed the phone and looked at the clock on the wall before standing.

"I have to go," he said to Gingy as he got his coat. "Count it all out and put it in the safe below the desk, put my share in one bag and the big man's share in the other."

"You got it, sweetheart. I'll keep the ship running in your stead."

****

To look at Sebastian Hyde's office, you would think he was a college professor or some well to do businessman instead of the kingpin of Center City. There were books, shelves and shelves of books on the three office walls. The lone wall not loaded down with books was an entire long pane of glass that stretched across the wall in a window that gave off a pretty impressive view of Center City. The books were all random as hell. Everything from Gibbon's six part series on the history of Rome, to Danielle Steel. Tracy doubted very much that Hyde had even cracked open one of those books.in his library. The man didn't care about books, and he didn't care about his impressive view. The books and window were all a show to anyone who came into the office. It was projecting power. Look at how many nice things I have, look at the entire town that I sit above like a king. All of that boiled down to a simple message: Don't fuck with me.

"Tracy," Hyde said as he came in.

Tracy stood and wordlessly greeted the old man as he walked towards his desk. Hyde wasn't in his usual three-piece, but he still wore dark slacks and a collared shirt. Tracy remained standing until Hyde sat down behind the desk.

"It's late, let's cut the bullshit, son. Do you know Thomas Flynn?"

"Rings a bell. Does he owe you money?"

"No, unfortunately not. Flynn owns a good deal of the industrial park here in town. Supposed to be worth half a billion. He keeps his nose mostly clean, as clean as anyone worth that kind of money can be. He apparently has done something rather bad because he's being blackmailed. He wants to keep it under wraps, so he decided to come to me instead of the cops. He wants to pay me a good deal of money to make the blackmailer disappear. I'll cut you twenty percent of what he gives me and you make this asshole deader than the goddamn steak I had for dinner."

Hyde working for money didn't jive true to Tracy. He had more than enough money than he or his kids would ever spend. But what was left unsaid Tracy knew all too well. Flynn was asking Sebastian Hyde for a favor. All it took was for Hyde to get his foot into the door and he owned you. As bad as any blackmail could be, what Hyde could do would be ten times worse. For Hyde to get in good with a man like Flynn would give him something much more valuable than money. Flynn got your connections, contracts, businessmen, and politicians. Influence, a half a billion dollar's worth of influence Hyde could call on.

"What if I find out what he's being blackmailed for?"

The old man's eyes lit up and his eyebrows arched as he smiled.

"Go ahead and send that my way. Always good to have some insurance. Good luck, son."

Tracy nodded and stood, heading towards the door. He hated when Hyde called him son. he made a mental note that when he got his revenge on the old prick, he would hit him int he balls for every time the old man had called him son. After tonight, Tracy's count was up to 219.