Byrd Man

Spill it. Who's on your Friend's List?

"Your Friends:

You have no friends"

:(

My life in a nutshell.

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

Stay still," Strange said.

John Norman lay on his back on the dirty trailer floor. He looked up at the once white ceiling that was now a dull brown and dotted with water stains from a leaky roof. His eyes glanced towards Strange as he placed his rough hands on John's cheeks. "Take a deep breath and don't flinch. I'm going on the count of three. One... three!"

Strange's hands squeezed John's nose and twisted it back into place. It made a loud pop and he yelled. The stabbing pain in John's face filled his vision with tiny black dots that danced and swirled around the water stains on the ceiling.

"There we go," Strange said, patting John's shoulder. "You can sit up."

He did and leaned against the back cushion on the couch. Strange handed him a beer and a dish towel wrapped around ice cubes. John sipped the beer with one hand while he held the towel to his swollen and bruised face with the other. Strange walked around the living room cluttered with empty beer cans, cigarette packs, and yellowing newspapers. He sat down in the recliner facing the couch and lit up a cigarette. Strange was junkie skinny, wearing a light brown t-shirt and a pair of torn jeans. His auburn hair was cut short in a military style high and tight.

By John's recollection, Strange had only been home from prison for about six months. He'd shipped out with the Army right after high school, like a lot of young boys in Pickett did when they didn't have the brains for college or the skills for industry. The Army trained him as a medic and then his division had shipped out to Afghanistan. Something happened over there, John wasn't sure what, but he'd turned to morphine and pain pills for comfort. He got caught stealing from a field hospital and was sent packing. He'd served time at an Army prison somewhere out in Kansas before they sent him back home to Pickett.

To his credit, he found a way to make his training work for him. He ran a backwoods clinic out of his trailer, helping people with various injuries for money or pills. Might not sound like a good idea, but the closest hospital was thirty miles away, and he always catered to the fringes of society that didn't like to deal with things like health insurance or police reports.

"Give it to me straight, doc," John said after a sip of beer. "Will I ever be able to play violin again?"

"Unless you're playing with your face, I don't see why not," he said in between cigarette puffs. "You got a mild concussion. That and the dislocated nose were the worse of it. Your face is gonna hurt like hell for a while, but it'll get better."

The screen door opened and Mike came in. He looked at John and then at Strange. "Got him fixed up?"

"Best as I could," Strange said. He leaned forward and looked at both of us anxiously. "Now, about..."

Mike said, "Here," and tossed a half-empty pill bottle underhanded towards Strange.

Strange caught them with one hand and quickly opened the childproof cap. He eyed the tiny tablets inside the bottle the way a jeweler eyes a diamond, scrutinizing everything in sight. Strange looked up at Mike and then nodded. Then he took three tablets and tossed them into his mouth. Instead of swallowing, he chewed them up. Chewing instead of swallowing lead to a faster high, or so the junkies thought.

"I had those left over from my rotator cuff surgery," Mike said to John.

"When'd you have surgery?" He asked.

"Few months ago," Mike said with a shrug. "Wasn't anything to make a big deal about. He ready to go?"

"Oh, yeah," Strange said, his eyes already glazing over from the painkillers. "But he should avoid running into any fists from now on. Also, he should stay awake a few more hours just to be safe. Take my advice. I may not be a doctor, but that's because I'm not a major cunt."

Strange sunk down in his chair as the pills started to take effect. Mike looked over at John before heading out the door. He followed Mike out the screen door and down the porch of Strange's trailer. They walked across the cluttered yard filled with flat tires and fallen leaves towards his Cadillac.

"I got some more pills in case you need any," Mike said after starting the car. "Face doesn't look that bad once you got the blood wiped away."

"Yeah," he said, looking into the car's rearview mirror. His nose was swollen and his cheeks were puffy with a collection of small scratches and cuts on the forehead and chin. A shiner circled his left eye where Jed had connected with his fist. Strange was right that he was lucky to not be hurt worse. John was sure Jed could have made it a whole lot worse if he had wanted to.

They rode in silence back towards town. John told Mike the story on the drive up to Strange's trailer, everything from Parker's impressment of his services up until he got in Mike's car that night. He stayed quiet after that and hadn't said a word until coming into the trailer after Strange had fixed him up. John could almost hear the gears spinning in his head.

"We can be in Atlanta in two and a half hours," he finally said when they were halfway back to town. "Or Charlotte in three. I got enough cash to get you a one-way ticket somewhere. You can be off the plane and gone where ever you need to hide before the sheriff's department even knows what the hell is going on."

John put his hands up, a fruitless gesture in the dark. "Wait, I don't want to do that."

"You think you got a choice, boy? They tried to frame you for murder. You may have chunked that weapon, but the fix is still on and you can't get out from under it if you're still walking around Pickett."

"Let them arrest me," John said. "They can do one of those gunshot residue tests on me and see I didn't fire a weapon at all."

"You think it'll get that far?" Mike asked with a hollow and bitter laugh. "That cop they sent after you was there for a reason, boy, as was the extra rounds they left in that gun. You cannot be allowed to live. They would have come up with some bullshit about you resisting arrest, say you took a shot at the deputy and then gun you down."

"Nobody would think I'd be that stupid to try and kill a police officer."

"You're a Norman," Mike said dissmissvely. "You wouldn't be the first one of us to take a shot at a cop."

John sat in the dark, stewing in silence while the car sped south on the winding highway towards town. Mike was right, and he knew that. Who better to set up with murder than a Norman? Wouldn't surprise anybody at all if John suddenly snapped and went to killing people. He was always the "weird one" of the family, the one who had to go his own way. In truth he should have been running so fast you'd see nothing of him but asses and elbows... but then again.

"No," he said after a minute. "I want to see how this plays out. Jed and Jim Brown set me up, and I want to know why. I want to know what was so damn important about a shitheel like Beggs."

That was all true to a certain extent but he left out the real reason why he wanted to stick around: Carol. She was all mixed up in this some way, and he wanted to know how. He wanted to find her and make sure she was safe and protect her. He was high on some macho romanticism bullshit, letting it override his common sense. Then there was another deeper reason he wanted to say. He looked out at the pines as they passed by in the dark. Pickett County was all he knew. Save for a few stints in prison, he spent his entire life here. He was Pickett and Pickett was him, it was in his blood. Go to Atlanta or Charlotte? And do what exactly? Work at a fucking Dollar General? No. He had this town, his crop, and his name.

He didn't realize it, but he was as much a fiend as Strange. Instead of oxy and codeine as his drug of choice, it was a woman and a county. This world he lived in, this shadow world where Southern good ole boys and crime and violence all interconnect was his world. He kept chasing that high of a good drug deal, muscling a someone who owed him money, of running scams and pulling one over on as many people as possible.

And like a lot of junkies, he was now paying a steep price for that high.

Guardians of Infinity

Holy crap I wanna throw Hellcow at Howard, @Byrd Man

@Ruby

Bring it. I like my vampire beefsteaks medium rare.

RPer Appreciation Thread

@Byrd Man, thank you for all the fun American history facts.

@Pepperm1nts

Robert Todd Lincoln, in addition to being Abe Lincoln's son and being present when his father was on his deathbed, was tied to two other presidential assassinations. He was an eyewitness to James Garfield's assassination, and was part of William McKinley's party at a convention in Buffalo when he was assassinated but wasn't close enough to see the shooting. After McKinley's death, Lincoln refused any presidential invites he received for the rest of his life.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

Same app, slightly tinkered with.

Create a Hero RPG Application

Character you have created: Theodore Roosevelt

Alias: None

Speech Color: Normal speech.

Character Alignment: Hero

Identity: His identity is known, the fact that he's still alive is secret.

Character Personality: Roosevelt is very gung-ho (bully!) and considers himself a man of action. He will not hesitate to do whatever he needs to do to accomplish his goals. His willingness for combat is a front at this point. He needs to fight to feel alive. Long stretches without missions throw him into a state of melancholy. With no family and no friends, he needs something to do to give him purpose and strength. His is a man who needs a mission and without a mission he falls apart.

Uniform/costume: Picture

Origin Info/Details:

Executive Branch Backstory

In 1776, the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence and went to war with Great Britain. In early 1777 General George Washington met with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, representatives of the Continental Congress, in Philadelphia. With Jefferson was a man from France. The young Gilbert du Motier, known as the Marquis de Lafayette, was a prominent French military office even at his very young age. With Washington was Prussian Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. Both men spoke to the three revolutionaries about an old and powerful society known as the Timekeepers. Made up of the elite thinkers, noblemen, and politicians, the Timekeepers acted as metronome for the entire world, responsible for maintaining the rhythm and natural order of things. It was the Timekeepers that declared that the time of British hegemony in the Americas would begin to end. The colonies would win the war, Lafayette and von Steuben would help them.

In a ceremony in Philadelphia Washington, Adams, and Jefferson were inducted into the Timekeepers order and shown their secrets. The ancient society possessed powerful artifacts of supernatural nature and had access to magic. Using the Timekeepers' tools, the Colonies defeated England and declared their independence. In 1787 Washington was elected president of the United States, Adams his vice-president, and Jefferson appointed secretary of state. As part of the Timekeepers, all three men had been made immortal and given a serum that gave them special abilities. All three faked their deaths at appropriate times and went into hiding in Europe in the early 1800's.

In 1830 the three men discovered the Timekeepers' long and winding plot that would see the United States expand all the way to the Pacific ocean, and then shatter into two separate nations after a long and bloody civil war. The three founding fathers could not bear to see the country they founded destroyed. Defying their society, the men fled Europe and returned to US. They used whatever means they could to stop and delay civil war, influencing politics from the shadows. In 1860 they used their hidden influence to elect a man who would keep the Union together: Abraham Lincoln. They revealed themselves to him and covertly worked with Lincoln throughout the war. The Timekeepers discovered the founding father's treachery and turned on them. Unable to stop the Union from winning the war, they had Lincoln assassinated in revenge. This did not stop the Founders, who used their magic to bring Lincoln back from the grave days after he was killed.

Europe and the powers that controlled it could no longer be trusted. The old world could never govern nor control the new. The four presidents founded the Executive Branch. It served as a clandestine organization that would protect and fight for the United States, her interest, and freedom any place and anywhere. Their ranks are made up of former American presidents and other historical figures, each of them turned immortal in the same way the three founders were. Their long war with the Timekeepers ended after the First World War, when the last remnants of the old and rotten society were swept away in the fiery cataclysm of the war.

Now in 2015, they wage clandestine wars against a variety of threats that include the Secret Soviet Union, the Fourth Reich, and the Roman Republic of Zombies. But something dark and unknown lurks on the outer reaches of the world. A darkness is setting in, and an old power is returning to take control.

Roosevelt Backstory

Theodore Roosevelt was born in 1858 to a prominent New York family. The young "Teddy" had several adventures, from becoming a boxing champion at Harvard to a historian and politician, to cowboy and sheriff's deputy in Montana, before he ventured into public service. He served as the first Commissioner of the New York Police Department and helped the expanding city's police develop into a true metropolitan police force. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War caused him to resign his office and recruit his own cavalry regiment to the fight the war.

As Colonel Roosevelt leading the Rough Riders, Teddy accomplished military victories in Cuba that launched his political career further. He ran and was elected as Governor of New York and began a crusade for public reform. The powers that be in New York became scared of Roosevelt and out-maneuvered him by having him nominated as Vice-President under incumbent William McKinley, tossing Roosevelt out of the governor's mansion and in a meaningless post for four years. An assassin's bullet changed everything.

When McKinley died, Roosevelt became President and pushed forward with the rapid expansion of American military and industrial might, as well as reform in industry, government, and business. He finished McKinley's term and was reelected in a landslide. He decided not to seek a third term and handed the ball to his good friend William Howard Taft. Roosevelt in retirement watched Taft's presidency with a critical eye. He judged that his friend has mismanaged the cause of the Progressives and decided to run for president again in 1912 as a third party candidate in the "Bull Moose Party" the bitter election between Roosevelt and Taft caused the two men to split the Republican and Progressive vote, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected.

Roosevelt watched powerlessly while Wilson guided America into the First World War, a role he believed he should have done. His failing health only worsened when he learned the devastating news that his youngest son Quentin's plane had been shot down over France. The man who had always loved the thrill of combat had the brutal truths of war brought home to him. He died less than a year later at the age of sixty.

Shortly after the war the Executive Branch exhumed his body and brought him back to life. Immortal and reinvigorated, Roosevelt tried to work his way out of the loss of his son. As an operative he participated in OPERATION: SCAR in Chicago to root out occultist bootleggers in 1924 and OPERATION: DAGGER STEADY in 1936 involving the growing mystic powers of the Nazi Thule Society. During the outbreak of the Second World War Roosevelt was active in all theaters, from stealing the German Enigma Code with Abraham Lincoln to battling a Japanese sorceress with his old rival Taft. After the collapse of the Third Reich and the retreat of the Fourth Reich, the Executive Branch dug in to support freedom during the long Cold War with the Soviet Union and their counterpart to the EB, the Heroes of Lenin.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of terrorism as the main concern of the day means that Roosevelt and his colleagues have had to change up their way of doing things to protect the world from threats.

Hero Type: Normal

Power Level: Street Level

Powers: None

Attributes: Roosevelt is an expert marksman with his fabled elephant gun as well as a skilled combatant in a variety of hand to hand fighting styles. Executive Branch training has also given him proficient espionage and spycraft abilities.

Strength Level: Normal Human.

Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal Human

Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal Human

Agility: Normal Human

Intelligence: Genius

Fighting Skill: Mastered

Resources: Extreme

Weaknesses: Roosevelt is immortal and cannot die of old age or disease, but he can be killed.

Supporting Characters:

Franklin D. Roosevelt - Theodore's cousin, director of operations for the Executive Branch
Abraham Lincoln - Fellow Executive Branch field agent
John F. Kennedy - Fellow Executive Branch field agent
Andrew Jackson - Fellow Executive Branch field agent
Fredrick II "Fredrick the Great" - Former Timekeeper grandmaster, Roosevelt nemesis
Lyudmila Pavlichenko - Soviet Sniper, Secret Soviet Union agent, Roosevelt love interest
Richard Nixon - Executive Branch's resident mage and mystic expert

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yes.

Sample Post (Minimum Four paragraphs containing dialogue. As this is an Advanced Level game, Sample must also meet the RPG forum's minimum requirement of 12 lines):

Southern Ural Mountains
0455 Local Time

"Something's not right," Teddy Roosevelt said under his breath.

His usual three-piece suit was gone, swapped out for the khaki Rough Rider's uniform with the silver eagle of a full Colonel on the collar. He wore his slouch hat with the bill folded on the right. Slung over his shoulder was the massive elephant gun that could take out nearly any creature on the planet, clipped to his belt was a truncheon -- the proverbial big stick.

Roosevelt stood in the middle of the small camp set up on the mountain plateau. A soft flurry of snow fell from the sky and coated the ground in the powder. Andrew Jackson, a Colt 1911 in hand and his saber strapped to his belt, checked the shacks in the facility with his squad of six tactical officers, former US special forces and police officers handpicked to be part of the elite work the Executive Branch did. Halfway across the camp, Nixon shuffled through the snow with his hands making arcane gestures.

"Have you found anything, Mr. Nixon?" Teddy called to him.

"No," Nixon said too quickly. Roosevelt couldn't see it, but Nixon was sweating profusely even in the cold. His enchantments were picking up magic unlike anything he had seen before. It was old and it was powerful, very powerful. There was a hum, ever so soft, and he appeared to be the only one who could hear it. It called to him, it whispered things to him and beckoned him closer. Nixon looked towards the rest of the group before he slowly shuffled further into the camp towards the source of the hum.

“What is your science telling us, Dr. Feynman?” Roosevelt called out to their resident science expert.

Richard Feynman and two scientists in radiation suits combed the area with Geiger counters. Feynman pecked at the touchscreen tablet with glove-clad fingertips.

“There’s radiation here, Mr. Roosevelt, albeit very background. UV lights show some kind of… liquid all through the area.”

Teddy walked over to the scientist and read their displays. He furrowed his brow as he saw the invisible contrails under the UV light.

“What the devil is that, Doctor?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Teddy beckoned Jackson and ordered him and his team to slowly follow the trails towards their source. Roosevelt and the tactical squad spread out through the camp. Teddy gripped his elephant gun tightly and prepared for anything.

“Sir,” one of the officers yelled to Jackson. “Contact left!”

The tactical officers, Jackson, and Teddy all turned towards the officer. Shuffling in front of him was a man in tattered clothing. Black, inky liquid dripped from the man’s mouth as he approached the young officer.

“Get the fuck back!” the young man yelled.

In response, the raggedy man belched loudly. A large dollop of the black liquid spewed from his mouth and coated the officer. He screamed and fell backwards. He yelled in pain as the liquid coated his chest and face.

“Open fire!” Teddy yelled.

His elephant gun roared, mingling with the automatic weapons fire of the rest of the unit as they tore into the strange assailant.
Nixon heard the sounds of gunfire across the camp, but distantly. That hum was now filling his ears. Like a siren song it guided him through the dig site towards a pit. Nixon could see strange energy pulsating from the hole. His breath quickened as he approached the source of the power. He looked down into the abyss and felt like he was staring into his soul. A voice whispered in his ear, a dead language that hadn’t been spoken for thousands of years.

“My name?" He asked whatever was in the hole. "I... I am Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States and Archmage of the Trilateral Guild…. Why am I here? I’m here because I know power when I see it. My whole life I’ve craved power, more and more and more. Maybe… maybe we can work out a deal.”

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

Holy Crap Byrd's alive

@nitemare shape

The reports of my death were some complete bullshit.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

Thinking about coming back to this one. Not too sure yet.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I assume that'll be the only time we actually see you playing Serbia.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Holy crap that's cool. Might have to actually play Civ 5 in order to try that.

Also quick PoW related question: Is Ireland independent from the UK? I saw either in the lore summary or the wiki that it was, but I just wanted to confirm that. I don't want to do anything important with it, I just mention it in regards to the Irish-Americans in the US.

RPer Appreciation Thread

@Byrd Man, you is cool.

@Dinh AaronMk

You is smart, you is kind, you is important.