Byrd Man

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

That reminds me I've been thinking of applying for Cage too. I figure with the Netflix show coming someone is going to want to jump on the hype train.

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

Alright, I want to use Deathlok with my Daredevil stuff. He's pretty much going to be Deathlok in name only so speak now or forever hold your peace.

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

Sure. Looks good to me.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

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):

MacArthur Island
South Pacific
13:33 Local Time

"What a scoundrel," Theodore Roosevelt snarled. "The audacity, the sheer hair-brained folly of it all."

The 26th president paced the floors of the small cell he found himself in while the 16th president sat on the cell's cot with his legs crossed. The enclosure's six by eight feet space made it a tight space for the two men, especially when one man was of Lincoln's height and one of Roosevelt's girth. While Roosevelt paced and grumbled, Lincoln breathed slowly and closed his eyes. His many years on the planet had opened his mind up to new experiences and ideas. The idea of meditation was one of those ideas he fully embraced when he learned of it. The truth was he had been doing something similar to meditation all his life without knowing what it was. His ability to slow down and think a crisis over rationally helped him through the Civil War and the adventurous years that followed.

Men like Theodore and MacArthur thrived when they had the initiative, they needed to be engaged in activity lest they stop and have to face doubts and second guesses within their own mind. For Abraham Lincoln, those voices needed to be faced. It was only until a problem was observed from its many sides could a plan of action be surmised. It was better to be a little slow and make the right choice, then to rush into disaster.

"Mr. Lincoln?!" Roosevelt said loudly. "Are you paying attention? Only we can stop MacArthur's Mongol hordes from rampaging across the globe and ushering in a new age of barbarism controlled by that buffoon and all you can do is yoga?! My God, man, the time has come to save the world. You are a Republican, Mr. Lincoln. Act like it!"

Lincoln opened his eyes a smidge and smiled at Roosevelt through half-closed lids.

"When I was a circuit lawyer in Illinois some years ago, I defended a man who had been accused of stealing his neighbor's chickens. The neighbor got up on the stand and railed about how we saw the accused hanging around his home the night of the theft, about how the accused was eating many chickens over the next few days..."

He searched through the pockets of his suit and vest coat as he spoke, ignoring the annoyed look on Roosevelt's face.

"But I asked him, 'Mr. So-and-so,' I can't rightly recall his name, 'Mr. So-and-so, did you see the defendant steal those chickens?' And he said 'No, but I know my neighbor and he is a scoundrel of the lowest quality--' and I cut him off and said 'Assumption has no place in a court of law, Mr. So-and-so. You have no proof.' Well...," Lincoln flashed a smirk. "I trotted out a bunch of character witnesses. This man was a God fearing man, a community pillar, a man who was seen by many as a leading light in the time... and I lost the trial anyway, the jury didn't give a hoot about assumption or character. This pillar of the community was forever known as a chicken thief. Point of the story is this, you think you know someone, but you don't. You never really do, I suppose. MacArthur thinks he knows us, but he doesn't. Even though he's made a career out of analyzing an opponent's mind, he still does not know us fully--"

With a rip on his suit vest, Lincoln pulled a small item sewn into the cloth. He held up a lockpick into the dim lighting of the jail cell.

"And he has no idea of our little tricks."

--

The compound guard strolled down the corridor at an easy and slow pace. He felt a yawn come on and went to stifle it when a large hand wrapped itself around his mouth while another powerful hand grabbing his shoulder. The unseen attacker tossed him hard against the side of the wall and knocked the man unconscious before he could even scream. Lincoln searched the man and came up with a radio, a combat knife, and an automatic weapon he tossed to Roosevelt.

"What is the plan, sir," Roosevelt asked as he examined the weapon. Lincoln rolled his sleeves up past his elbows and slipped the guard's radio into his back pocket. The knife he palmed and felt the weight of the weapon.

"I will try to find the communications center of this facility and radio Franklin back at Rushmore."

"I believe I shall make a beeline for that lovely room where the Khan is being held."

"Always eager to lock horns with a Mongol warlord?" Lincoln asked with a smirk.

Roosevelt's face broke out into his large grin as he said, "Far and away the best prize life has to offer is the chance to beat an enemy in dire need of a good beating."

"Bully," Lincoln said as he disappeared down the corridor away from Roosevelt.

"Bully, indeed," Theodore said as he went in the opposite direction.

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

I like all these messages just for me. <3

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

"A good lawyer knows the law. A great lawyer knows the judge."
-- Traditional

Player Name: Byrd Man

Alias: The Devil of Hell's Kitchen

Real Name: Matt Murdock

Moral Alignment: WTL

Affiliation: The Campisi Crime Family, The Crusaders MC, etc.

Character Origin & Backstory:

Matt Murdock was born in the early 80's, son of Maggie Murdock and heavyweight boxer "Battlin'" Jack Murdock. Jack was an up and coming contender in the boxing scene with an outside chance at the title. He became enamored with the trappings of success, doing drugs and partying until late hours of the night. Maggie left Jack when Matt was three and never looked back. Matt's early impression of Maggie as a devoutly catholic woman who couldn't stand Jack's ways caused Matt to idolize his mother and condemn his father.

When Matt was eleven Jack had a shot for the heavyweight title of the world. The day before the fight mob figure Roscoe "The Fixer" Sweeney offered Jack a chance to take a dive. Strapped for cash and filled with the Fixer's promises, Jack took the dive in the sixth round and retired from boxing the next night. He soon opened up "Jack's Place" a tavern in Hell's Kitchen bought with Fixer's money to be used as a mob front. Matt saw his father's ties to organized crime figures tighten and began to hate the man. He ran away from home at the age of twelve and ended up an accident when a chemical truck nearly hit him and instead splashed toxic waste in his face.

The accident took his sight but it also gave him more. It heightened his other four senses to the point of superhuman and gave him a radar sense that negated any disabilities a lack of vision gave him. Jack felt guilt over driving his son away used his money to pay for anything the boy needed or wanted, including a tutor named Stick. The old blind man was hired to teach Matt to adjust to his blindness, but Stick taught him how to thrive. He recognized the hate and yearning in the boy, the passionate need to be better than his father. Stick channeled those feelings into training. He showed Matt how to live and operate in the world as if he were any other person, and he also taught Matt the secret skills of martial arts and Ninjutsu.

Matt went to Columbia University after high school to major in pre-law. The excuse he gave his father and the rest of the world was that he wanted to become a defense attorney. While it was true, it was also part of a much larger plan he had worked out with Stick. During Matt's time at college, Jack began to work more and more for the Fixer and his superiors. Sweeney was a made man in the Campisi Crime Family, New York's top mob family. Soon Jack's Place was a waystation for junkies and dealers buying and selling a new and improved form of heroin from Asia. A DEA snitch fingered Jack as a dealer and he was brought into custody. Jack agreed to roll on those above him, but before he could an unknown assassin dressed as a police officer slit his throat with a razor-edged playing card while Jack was in police custody.

Matt graduated from law school first in his class just six months after his father's murder. Angelo Campisi, head of the crime family Jack worked for, took pity on the young man and threw some low-level defense cases his way. After Matt got the defendants off, Campisi began to use his legal services more and more. Before long he relied on Matt's legal advice on nearly all matters both large and small. Matt was made an unofficial consigliere of the Campisi Crime Family. Word began to get around New York and Matt Murdock was hired by other gangsters to defend them. All the media outlets in the city say Matt Murdock is the dirtiest lawyer in New York, if not the country. They say he manipulates the law to get his guilty clients acquitted. That's what the media says. By day the most amoral man in New York learns all the dirty little secrets of the mob as their adviser. By night, he becomes the thing they fear the most.

He becomes the Devil.

Powers and Abilities:

Matt is blind, but his other four senses have been augmented to superhuman levels. The senses work together to create a radar sense that makes up for his lack of vision. The heightened senses also makes him into a human lie detector, capable of reading anybody's pulse or any small micro changes in their biology when they lie. Stick's training also turned Matt into a master acrobat and martial artist skilled in the art of Ninjutsu. Matt also has one of the best legal minds in the country, an expert on the American justice system that makes him a competent and formidable trial lawyer and legal adviser. His intelligence and experience in criminal law has also led to Matt developing a keen detective mind.

Sample Story Arcs:

Nolo Contendere - After accepting to take up the murder defense of a young man pro bono, Matt begins to discover his client is truly innocent despite his many claims that he is guilty. As Matt tries to get the case thrown out based on evidence, Daredevil looks into the young man's past and neighborhood and discovers a sinister conspiracy.

Casus Belli - A shaky alliance between the mob and the Crusaders MC is in tatters after a drug deal gone bad ends with dead men on both sides and a missing briefcase with a million dollars in it. While Matt Murdock tires to prevent a gang war between his clients, Daredevil tears up the city in search of the perpetrators of the attack and the missing money.

Hostis Humani Generis - A vigilante has come to the city, reigning down death and destruction to those in need of punishment. Among the killers targets is Matt Murdock, the city's number one criminal lawyer.

Rules: I didn't read the rules because I can't read.

Sample Post:

Midtown Manhattan
9:45 AM

"'If Justice personified is blind, then Injustice personified most certainly is. That personification is a blind man. This blind man sits by the phone day and night, waiting for the call from some of the city's most dangerous and corrupt individuals. He talks about the lofty ideals and notions of justice in the courtroom, but one look at the last name on his client's list -- Campisi, Manfredi, De La Rosa, Blackwood -- and you know that Matt Murdock's talk is just that.' It goes on and on like that for another two pages. Bunch of talk about the mistrial with De La Rosa, then the stuff about the Crusaders... and then a last saying you should be disbarred."

"So, usual Daily Bugle boilerplate," I said to Karen. "Remind me to sue them for libel when I get the chance."

"Yes, sir."

That paper has attacked me so much over the past year that I could barely notice Karen's pulse rise anymore when she reads their editorials. They're not the only place that likes to attack me. Papers, websites, TV stations, even other lawyers and politicians all have an anti-Murdock stance of some sort... at least, the politicians and media organizations not in the pockets of my clients.

"That's all, Karen, you can go."

Karen Page, a paralegal and my only staff member quickly and quietly left the room while I leaned back in my chair. Karen was the gatekeeper when it came to any time with me. I only worked by referral, my card nothing but a phone number. That phone number rang here to Karen's desk. From there she would do the Murdock test. Either you had enough cash to cover my fees, or your case was unique enough to grant me exposure. If you didn't have one of those two things, then Karen would refer to her rolodex full of other lawyers happy to take the case. If you did pass that test, then she passed you along to me and we would have a meeting either at my office or at whatever lockup you happened to find yourself in. Hopefully said meeting would be in my office, if only for the scenery.

My office is on the fortieth floor of an impressive Midtown skyscraper. They say it has one hell of a view of Lower Manhattan. Guess I'll take their word for it. Someone once asked why I paid so much for this corner office when I could have gotten another one on the same floor without a view for a hundred thousand dollars cheaper. I didn't dignify them with a response. In this business, what I do on the books and off of them, you show strength by your decisions. A blind man wasting a hundred grand on a view he'll never see is part of my strength. It's part of my power. I bought the office because I could.

Syosset, New York
6 PM

"Matt, my boy," Don Campisi said cheerfully.

His old and withered hands felt like sandpaper scrapping against the skin of my hands. He patted the back of my hand and put the other hand on my elbow to guide me across the lawn. He thought of it as a favor, but I could get around the yard better than he could. I've never laid eyes on the man but I can describe the old mob boss perfectly. Short, squat, with wisps of white hair on his pale scalp. Large eyeglasses so thick his eyes look alien. To the world at large, Angelo Campisi looks like a doddering old grandfather. To think that's what he is would be to sorely underestimate the man.

"I'm so glad you made it out," he said once we were both sitting in lawn chairs. "I know it's a hell of a drive out of the city, especially for you."

"Well, I didn't hear any moaning under the car when I stopped, so I guess I did alright."

"If you hit 'em just right, you won't hear any moaning at all!"

Campisi laughed at his own joke before moving on to small talk. He had to tell me all about his kids that I didn't care about. I nodded at the right times and said the right things. One of Campisi's men came out and dropped off two impossibly strong coffees. Just the smell of it gave me the jitters. Campisi picked one up with shaking hands and took a long sip. After that he finally got down to it.

"I want you advice on something, Matty. You know Joey Bags? Works with that crew out in Red Hook? He and Paulie came to me a few nights ago with an idea on a score. Those fucking biker pricks you repped last year, what were they?"

"The Crusaders."

Officially, the Crusaders Motorcycle Club is simply a group of motorcycle enthusiast. In reality, they are the worst of the outlaw motorcycle gangs in America. They run guns, drugs, whores, and create general mayhem and destruction everywhere they go. They are also without a doubt my most reliable clients.

"They got a club over in Bensonhurst," said Campisi. "Joey Bags and Paulie are gonna have a sit down with them tonight. They want to use these Cruasder fucks to mule coke and dope across the country. They're always going on these cross country rides to Piss-ant, Florida or somewheres out in California. They don't go on the interstate, and they can make drops and deliveries to our people in Miami, Kansas City, or wherever. Instead of a fucking pick-up truck carrying two hundred pounds, fifty bikers carrying six pounds a piece make drops over the course of a week. "

My mob lawyer hat was on. I needed to play through the motions to get what I wanted at the end.

"Could be risk involved. One of these bikers could try to rip you off, get a wild hair up his ass and decide to rip off you and his club."

"He does that he's dead," Campisi said coolly. "And not just by our people. His own people. Those biker fucks, they don't play around if you betray them."

I knew that all too well. I represented their president on a murder charge last year. One of their members was talking to the ATF. He suddenly had an accident that cut his tongue out, or at least that's what I made the jury believe.

"I think it'll work," I said with a nod. "What's your exposure?"

Campisi shrugged and took another sip from his coffee. "Paulie and Joey are meeting with the top guys and that's it. If the rank and file get pinched and want to flip, they'll rat out the guys in their club and they will stand tall. No way it gets back to them or me."

"I'm just hurt and offended I wasn't consulted on this. Blackwood is my client, after all."

Campisi put his dried up hand on the back of my hand. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. "It's Paulie's show, you know how he is with you. Thinks cause you're a mick you can't be trusted."

I didn't say it, but I thought that maybe Paulie was on to something. Maybe he was the only member of the Campisi Family with a bit of sense.

St. Patrick's Cathedral
Manhattan
11:20 PM

I had twenty grand in my jacket pocket when I went in St. Patrick's. The twenty grand was partially my cut on the forthcoming deal with the Crusaders, as well as my retainer for doing the don's legal work. Going into churches always made me think about my mother. Maggie Murdock was like a ghost. I had no idea where she was, and I often wondered what she was doing if she were still alive. I thought many times over the years about hiring a PI to track her down, but I always came up short at the last minute.

The twenty grand in my jacket didn't feel that big. It was just two hundred one hundred dollar bills bundled into twenty neat thousand dollar packets. The cash felt light enough when I took tit out of my jacket and stuck it in the poor box. They say all the good Catholics tithe ten percent. By that logic I had to be a great one since I tithed a hundred percent. Before I left I asked a priest to light a candle for my mother.
Maybe it was good to never meet her. That way she could be that devout catholic woman I knew all those years ago. She could never be corrupted like my dad was. She was frozen in time as a good woman. A good woman who would never have to witness what her son had become. I made a final prayer and prepared myself to go to work.

Red Hook, Brooklyn
2:14 AM

"We don't fuck with drugs we don't make," Arthur Blackwood, president of the Crusaders Motorcycle Club, said with a scowl. "We're not errand boys. You want mules go to Washington Heights and get some project niggers. Why the hell should we stick out neck out for you? Because you say you'll pay?"

The two mobsters looked at each other. Paulie D'agistino, the underboss of the Campisi Crime Family, rubbed his chin while Joseph Baggato "Joey Bags" stuck his hands in his pants pockets and shrugged.

"That," Joey Bags started. "And, we both know your club is going under. The days of the outlaw biker gang ain't what they used to be. You're hurting for money, the ATF busts your balls day and night about that little weapons trafficking business you got. Fact of the matter is you need this. You're already making these fucking rides anyway, why not get paid while you're at it? Say yes."

Blackwood looked behind him, where three of his fellow bikers sat parked on their motorcyles in the back alley lot. Blackwood shuffled his feet and exhaled before finally nodding.

"Fine," he said.

Suddenly, a sharp whistling noise filled the air. A spinning object flew from the shadows and decked a biker in the forehead. Paulie and Joey pulled pistols from their waistbands at almost the same time the Crusaders did. The two sides looked across the lot for any indication of the voice's owner.

"The hell was that?" Paulie asked, looking at Blackwood. "You trying to pull something on me?"

"Me? What about you?! You're a goddamn informant or something?!"

Out of the shadows, a blur of motion slammed into Joey Bags and knocked him to the ground. Both sides opened fire, Blackwood fell to the ground as bullets fired above him. The figure jumped away before the bullets could reach it. The figure swung back into the shadows and up onto the roof of the warehouse.

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

@Byrd Man I'll have to PM you at some point before beginning my sheet to ask you about a few details involving NYC street-level events; primarily Fisk.

@Nexus Prime

K

I have a rough idea of street gangs and organizations I'd like to use.

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

@Byrd Man you're good. Also open invitation to join the GM-Council-Of-Four, which would then be GM-Council-Of-Five but whatevs, name pending.

@Sep

No thanks. I'm not a big decision making kind of guy.

Marvel - Dawn of Heroes

"A good lawyer knows the law. A great lawyer knows the judge."

Player Name: Byrd Man

Alias: The Devil of Hell's Kitchen

Real Name: Matt Murdock

Moral Alignment: WTL

Affiliation: The Campisi Crime Family, The Crusaders MC, etc.

Character Origin & Backstory:

Matt Murdock was born in the early 80's, son of Maggie Murdock and heavyweight boxer "Battlin'" Jack Murdock. Jack was an up and coming contender in the boxing scene with an outside chance at the title. He became enamored with the trappings of success, doing drugs and partying until late hours of the night. Maggie left Jack when Matt was three and never looked back. Matt's early impression of Maggie as a devoutly catholic woman who couldn't stand Jack's ways caused Matt to idolize his mother and condemn his father.

When Matt was eleven Jack had a shot for the heavyweight title of the world. The day before the fight mob figure Roscoe "The Fixer" Sweeney offered Jack a chance to take a dive. Strapped for cash and filled with the Fixer's promises, Jack took the dive in the sixth round and retired from boxing the next night. He soon opened up "Jack's Place" a tavern in Hell's Kitchen bought with Fixer's money to be used as a mob front. Matt saw his father's ties to organized crime figures tighten and began to hate the man. He ran away from home at the age of twelve and ended up an accident when a chemical truck nearly hit him and instead splashed toxic waste in his face.

The accident took his sight but it also gave him more. It heightened his other four senses to the point of superhuman and gave him a radar sense that negated any disabilities a lack of vision gave him. Jack felt guilt over driving his son away used his money to pay for anything the boy needed or wanted, including a tutor named Stick. The old blind man was hired to teach Matt to adjust to his blindness, but Stick taught him how to thrive. He recognized the hate and yearning in the boy, the passionate need to be better than his father. Stick channeled those feelings into training. He showed Matt how to live and operate in the world as if he were any other person, and he also taught Matt the secret skills of martial arts and Ninjutsu.

Matt went to Columbia University after high school to major in pre-law. The excuse he gave his father and the rest of the world was that he wanted to become a defense attorney. While it was true, it was also part of a much larger plan he had worked out with Stick. During Matt's time at college, Jack began to work more and more for the Fixer and his superiors. Sweeney was a made man in the Campisi Crime Family, New York's top mob family. Soon Jack's Place was a waystation for junkies and dealers buying and selling a new and improved form of heroin from Asia. A DEA snitch fingered Jack as a dealer and he was brought into custody. Jack agreed to roll on those above him, but before he could an unknown assassin dressed as a police officer slit his throat with a razor-edged playing card while Jack was in police custody.

Matt graduated from law school first in his class just six months after his father's murder. Angelo Campisi, head of the crime family Jack worked for, took pity on the young man and threw some low-level defense cases his way. After Matt got the defendants off, Campisi began to use his legal services more and more. Before long he relied on Matt's legal advice on nearly all matters both large and small. Matt was made an unofficial consigliere of the Campisi Crime Family. Word began to get around New York and Matt Murdock was hired by other gangsters to defend them. All the media outlets in the city say Matt Murdock is the dirtiest lawyer in New York, if not the country. They say he manipulates the law to get his guilty clients acquitted. That's what the media says. By day the most amoral man in New York learns all the dirty little secrets of the mob as their adviser. By night, he becomes the thing they fear the most.

He becomes the Devil.

Powers and Abilities:

Matt is blind, but his other four senses have been augmented to superhuman levels. The senses work together to create a radar sense that makes up for his lack of vision. The heightened senses also makes him into a human lie detector, capable of reading anybody's pulse or any small micro changes in their biology when they lie. Stick's training also turned Matt into a master acrobat and martial artist skilled in the art of Ninjutsu. Matt also has one of the best legal minds in the country, an expert on the American justice system that makes him a competent and formidable trial lawyer and legal adviser. His intelligence and experience in criminal law has also led to Matt developing a keen detective mind.

Sample Story Arcs:

Nolo Contendere - After accepting to take up the murder defense of a young man pro bono, Matt begins to discover his client is truly innocent despite his many claims that he is guilty. As Matt tries to get the case thrown out based on evidence, Daredevil looks into the young man's past and neighborhood and discovers a sinister conspiracy.

Casus Belli - A shaky alliance between the mob and the Crusaders MC is in tatters after a drug deal gone bad ends with dead men on both sides and a missing briefcase with a million dollars in it. While Matt Murdock tires to prevent a gang war between his clients, Daredevil tears up the city in search of the perpetrators of the attack and the missing money.

Hostis Humani Generis - A vigilante has come to the city, reigning down death and destruction to those in need of punishment. Among the killers targets is Matt Murdock, the city's number one criminal lawyer.

Rules: I didn't read the rules because I can't read.

Sample Post:

Midtown Manhattan
9:45 AM

"'If Justice personified is blind, then Injustice personified most certainly is. That personification is a blind man. This blind man sits by the phone day and night, waiting for the call from some of the city's most dangerous and corrupt individuals. He talks about the lofty ideals and notions of justice in the courtroom, but one look at the last name on his client's list -- Campisi, Manfredi, De La Rosa, Blackwood -- and you know that Matt Murdock's talk is just that.' It goes on and on like that for another two pages. Bunch of talk about the mistrial with De La Rosa, then the stuff about the Crusaders... and then a last saying you should be disbarred."

"So, usual Daily Bugle boilerplate," I said to Karen. "Remind me to sue them for libel when I get the chance."

"Yes, sir."

That paper has attacked me so much over the past year that I could barely notice Karen's pulse rise anymore when she reads their editorials. They're not the only place that likes to attack me. Papers, websites, TV stations, even other lawyers and politicians all have an anti-Murdock stance of some sort... at least, the politicians and media organizations not in the pockets of my clients.

"That's all, Karen, you can go."

Karen Page, a paralegal and my only staff member quickly and quietly left the room while I leaned back in my chair. Karen was the gatekeeper when it came to any time with me. I only worked by referral, my card nothing but a phone number. That phone number rang here to Karen's desk. From there she would do the Murdock test. Either you had enough cash to cover my fees, or your case was unique enough to grant me exposure. If you didn't have one of those two things, then Karen would refer to her rolodex full of other lawyers happy to take the case. If you did pass that test, then she passed you along to me and we would have a meeting either at my office or at whatever lockup you happened to find yourself in. Hopefully said meeting would be in my office, if only for the scenery.

My office is on the fortieth floor of an impressive Midtown skyscraper. They say it has one hell of a view of Lower Manhattan. Guess I'll take their word for it. Someone once asked why I paid so much for this corner office when I could have gotten another one on the same floor without a view for a hundred thousand dollars cheaper. I didn't dignify them with a response. In this business, what I do on the books and off of them, you show strength by your decisions. A blind man wasting a hundred grand on a view he'll never see is part of my strength. It's part of my power. I bought the office because I could.

Syosset, New York
6 PM

"Matt, my boy," Don Campisi said cheerfully.

His old and withered hands felt like sandpaper scrapping against the skin of my hands. He patted the back of my hand and put the other hand on my elbow to guide me across the lawn. He thought of it as a favor, but I could get around the yard better than he could. I've never laid eyes on the man but I can describe the old mob boss perfectly. Short, squat, with wisps of white hair on his pale scalp. Large eyeglasses so thick his eyes look alien. To the world at large, Angelo Campisi looks like a doddering old grandfather. To think that's what he is would be to sorely underestimate the man.

"I'm so glad you made it out," he said once we were both sitting in lawn chairs. "I know it's a hell of a drive out of the city, especially for you."

"Well, I didn't hear any moaning under the car when I stopped, so I guess I did alright."

"If you hit 'em just right, you won't hear any moaning at all!"

Campisi laughed at his own joke before moving on to small talk. He had to tell me all about his kids that I didn't care about. I nodded at the right times and said the right things. One of Campisi's men came out and dropped off two impossibly strong coffees. Just the smell of it gave me the jitters. Campisi picked one up with shaking hands and took a long sip. After that he finally got down to it.

"I want you advice on something, Matty. You know Joey Bags? Works with that crew out in Red Hook? He and Paulie came to me a few nights ago with an idea on a score. Those fucking biker pricks you repped last year, what were they?"

"The Crusaders."

Officially, the Crusaders Motorcycle Club is simply a group of motorcycle enthusiast. In reality, they are the worst of the outlaw motorcycle gangs in America. They run guns, drugs, whores, and create general mayhem and destruction everywhere they go. They are also without a doubt my most reliable clients.

"They got a club over in Bensonhurst," said Campisi. "Joey Bags and Paulie are gonna have a sit down with them tonight. They want to use these Cruasder fucks to mule coke and dope across the country. They're always going on these cross country rides to Piss-ant, Florida or somewheres out in California. They don't go on the interstate, and they can make drops and deliveries to our people in Miami, Kansas City, or wherever. Instead of a fucking pick-up truck carrying two hundred pounds, fifty bikers carrying six pounds a piece make drops over the course of a week. "

My mob lawyer hat was on. I needed to play through the motions to get what I wanted at the end.

"Could be risk involved. One of these bikers could try to rip you off, get a wild hair up his ass and decide to rip off you and his club."

"He does that he's dead," Campisi said coolly. "And not just by our people. His own people. Those biker fucks, they don't play around if you betray them."

I knew that all too well. I represented their president on a murder charge last year. One of their members was talking to the ATF. He suddenly had an accident that cut his tongue out, or at least that's what I made the jury believe.

"I think it'll work," I said with a nod. "What's your exposure?"

Campisi shrugged and took another sip from his coffee. "Paulie and Joey are meeting with the top guys and that's it. If the rank and file get pinched and want to flip, they'll rat out the guys in their club and they will stand tall. No way it gets back to them or me."

"I'm just hurt and offended I wasn't consulted on this. Blackwood is my client, after all."

Campisi put his dried up hand on the back of my hand. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. "It's Paulie's show, you know how he is with you. Thinks cause you're a mick you can't be trusted."

I didn't say it, but I thought that maybe Paulie was on to something. Maybe he was the only member of the Campisi Family with a bit of sense.

St. Patrick's Cathedral
Manhattan
11:20 PM

I had twenty grand in my jacket pocket when I went in St. Patrick's. The twenty grand was partially my cut on the forthcoming deal with the Crusaders, as well as my retainer for doing the don's legal work. Going into churches always made me think about my mother. Maggie Murdock was like a ghost. I had no idea where she was, and I often wondered what she was doing if she were still alive. I thought many times over the years about hiring a PI to track her down, but I always came up short at the last minute.

The twenty grand in my jacket didn't feel that big. It was just two hundred one hundred dollar bills bundled into twenty neat thousand dollar packets. The cash felt light enough when I took tit out of my jacket and stuck it in the poor box. They say all the good Catholics tithe ten percent. By that logic I had to be a great one since I tithed a hundred percent. Before I left I asked a priest to light a candle for my mother.
Maybe it was good to never meet her. That way she could be that devout catholic woman I knew all those years ago. She could never be corrupted like my dad was. She was frozen in time as a good woman. A good woman who would never have to witness what her son had become. I made a final prayer and prepared myself to go to work.

Red Hook, Brooklyn
2:14 AM

"We don't fuck with drugs we don't make," Arthur Blackwood, president of the Crusaders Motorcycle Club, said with a scowl. "We're not errand boys. You want mules go to Washington Heights and get some project niggers. Why the hell should we stick out neck out for you? Because you say you'll pay?"

The two mobsters looked at each other. Paulie D'agistino, the underboss of the Campisi Crime Family, rubbed his chin while Joseph Baggato "Joey Bags" stuck his hands in his pants pockets and shrugged.

"That," Joey Bags started. "And, we both know your club is going under. The days of the outlaw biker gang ain't what they used to be. You're hurting for money, the ATF busts your balls day and night about that little weapons trafficking business you got. Fact of the matter is you need this. You're already making these fucking rides anyway, why not get paid while you're at it? Say yes."

Blackwood looked behind him, where three of his fellow bikers sat parked on their motorcyles in the back alley lot. Blackwood shuffled his feet and exhaled before finally nodding.

"Fine," he said.

Suddenly, a sharp whistling noise filled the air. A spinning object flew from the shadows and decked a biker in the forehead. Paulie and Joey pulled pistols from their waistbands at almost the same time the Crusaders did. The two sides looked across the lot for any indication of the voice's owner.

"The hell was that?" Paulie asked, looking at Blackwood. "You trying to pull something on me?"

"Me? What about you?! You're a goddamn informant or something?!"

Out of the shadows, a blur of motion slammed into Joey Bags and knocked him to the ground. Both sides opened fire, Blackwood fell to the ground as bullets fired above him. The figure jumped away before the bullets could reach it. The figure swung back into the shadows and up onto the roof of the warehouse.

Soviet Amerika [Inspired by Red Dawn]

Yeah, I'm working on my CS. Is it too late?