HeySeuss

Blackshields [Warhammer 40K, Horus Heresy]

Nice post, JB. Thank you for setting that up.

Maximum Comics

WOLVERINE

133 ⬥ James "Logan" Howlett ⬥ Chaotic Good

⭙ _{T I M E L I N E} ⭙

---

⬥ 1883 - James Howlett is born in Cold Lake, Alberta, thought to be the son of John Howlett Sr. and Elizbaeth Howlett. His father is actually Thomas Logan, a groundskeeper at the estate. James spent most of his early years on the estate grounds with two playmates that lived on the Howlett Estate with him: Rose O'Hara, a girl who was brought in from town to be a companion to young James, and a boy nicknamed "Dog", Thomas Logan's son (and James's half-brother). The children were close friends, but, as they reached adolescence, the abuse inflicted upon Dog warped his mind. Dog made unwanted advances towards Rose, which James reported to his father. In retaliation, Dog killed James' puppy, in turn leading to the expulsion of Thomas and Dog from the estate. In turn, Thomas Logan kills John Howlett Sr. during a confrontation. These events lead James to leave home and lead a nomadic life.

⬥ 1901-1902 - Logan settles in with Silver Fox, who is murdered by Sabretooth on Wolverine’s birthday in a series of yearly recurring attacks on that day. Sabretooth kills Silver Fox.

⬥ 1914-1945 - Service in WWI, time spent in Madripoor.

⬥ 1946 - Throughout Logan’s travels during World War II and afterwards, he meets Ogun, who mentors him in martial arts.

Logan settles in Japan with Itsu. Itsu is pregnant, though is killed by Winter Soldier, who was sent by Romulus, a mutant who has been alive for ages and has taken a particular interest in shaping Logan’s life.

⬥ 1960's and 1970's - Wolverine eventually enlists with the CIA, and becomes part of Team X, along with Sabretooth. He spends time around the world performing covert operations, with notable service in Germany, Southeast Asia and Central Africa.

Logan is eventually placed within the Experiment X program, under the Weapon X project. The government experiments with different means to take best advantage of Logan's mutations. The team arrives at the plan to bond adamantium to his skeleton, a process uniquely applicable to him due to his healing factor. Mind control is used to keep him in line, but Logan eventually manages an escape, albeit with no memory of what came before.

⭙ _{R E C E N T A C T I V I T I E S} ⭙

---

In the late 1970's, the Wolverine was one of several operatives in the Weapon X program. Owingg the Ford and Carter-era cutbacks to black programs, operations were cut back drastically. In no small part due to the Wolverine's escape, the program, was deemed too volatile and was slowly shut down. It was easy enough for the program to fundamentally let go and let these mutants go back to their lives, though the plans to bring these people back, as necessary, existed and the operatives themselves were provided treatment for longevity and modifications to their memories.

Logan doesn't remember any of that. He found himself in rural Alberta with a truck and a place to live, but little recollection of how or what happened. While there were far more questions than answers, Logan found himself in a familiar place and a familiar pattern; on the outskirts, the margins, the frontier. He inhabited a place with wide open spaces and relatively few neighbors. In the course of time, he found a small community of those like him, mutants on the fringe, keeping their head down against a harsh world, and inhabiting their own little space. It was a hippie commune, essentially, and Logan made the obligatory cynical comments about that, but was fundamentally drawn to the idea of letting the world do what it would so long as he had some modicum of peace.

While the others in the commune did their thing, Logan existed on the fringe of that, providing some degree of services as a handyman and fellow that knew the woods pretty well; how to chop lumber, how to otherwise survive. The other mutants didn't ask a lot of questions he couldn't answer about his past. Toward the 1990's, they heard from Xavier and representatives; Hank McCoy and, later, Jean Grey. At the time, Jean had her boyfriend and Logan was in his own dalliance, even if there was something there. Beyond that, the time spent in Alberta was, at least, a quiet sort of existence. That was, rather suddenly, disrupted around the time that Logan started to get closer to the community and start of a relationship with a girl named Bethany, when it started to get serious. The man was blonde and vicious, and seemed to know things about Logan's past. He killed Bethany, he killed other members of the commune. He tried to kill Logan. This led to questions and questions led him to the Xavier Institute.

Once he and Xavier came to an agreement to explore the root of his amnesia, he began to go out on X-men operations. Perhaps it was something about Jean, but Logan, with his rough charm, couldn't quite get past Jean's doubts about his stability. It was true that Logan was a cypher and a paradox, skilled in violence but always looking to settle down somewhere. A man with a strong independent streak that nonetheless committed himself to things, though never easily, with great tenacity. A skeptic and a cynic, a man that'd been hurt many times. Underneath that mass of emotional scars, even the ones that weren't consciously remembered, there was something else, but it was too fleeting in the face of the sure thing that was Scott. And Logan lived up to the billing of unreliability, disappearing for periods of time, off doing his own thing, trying to track down his past. He managed to come up during the big fights, with Magneto, with the Sentinels and in other situations, but he was just as often away pursuing his own agenda. He managed to come up with a couple things; Weapon X and a couple of names, but they were dead ends.

The Kryptonian invasion altered the calculus; they were in more fight than they could handle and it was Jean that unequivocally saved them in the fight. Logan thought they were goners and said what he was thinking, though it was easy enough for a telepath to just dig it out of there nor was it precisely news. After, they survived, but there was tension in the Institute. It was a traumatic fight for Jean and Logan understood trauma, even if he couldn't remember it all. She had her own scars and he tried, in his own rough and earnest way, to help her. Logan was there for the arguments. He had his say with his typical lack of tact. He wasn't entirely sure where his vehemence came from, because he couldn't remember what happened to him. But he made his choices. Jean left. That was when he felt her reaching out for him. It wasn't a hard choice, to leave behind Xavier's. Jean left first, but Logan wasn't far behind.

The next stop was Genosha. It wasn't much of a sanctuary, but it was where Jean wanted to go.

⭙ _{A L L I E S} ⭙

---

⬥ Jean Grey: The Kryptonian invasion changed Jean Grey, or perhaps it unleashed things that she has to wrestle with for control. Logan was never the polished type and he certainly never commits easily to anything, but he now finds himself tied to Jean and following her into Hell. Hell, in this case, is a mutant nation run by Magneto. In a lot of ways, the bodyguard accusations are true in the sense that he's protecting Jean from other people, but also protecting them from Jean. Logan, above all, understands the need for solitude.

⬥ The X-Men: In general, Logan is considered a part of the X-men on reserve, like Jean Grey, though he has never really fully joined on for the cause. Jean Grey's departure was also his departure, and that left some trust issues in his wake. While Logan believes generally in what the X-men are doing, he also felt strongly compelled to leave with Jean. There's a lot of wreckage in the wake of Jean's leaving, whereas Logan was expected to pick up sticks sooner or later. In truth, a couple people there probably were relieved that the Wolverine went off on his own again.

⬥ Charles Xavier: While Logan respects the professor, he's an outsider at the Institute, and moreso than the other X-men, his own person. The ideals are fine and the Professor tries his best to make it work in a murky and uncertain world. Whatever went on with Jean and the Professor, Logan was there for it, but he's certainly not saying much.

⭙ _{E N E M I E S} ⭙

---

⬥ William Stryker: This is an enemy that Logan is not aware of, but he is back in government work, advising on special projects for DARPA, who have seen a huge infusion of resources in the wake of the Kryptonian invasion. He is hardly the only old black ops guy being brought back into the fold.

⬥ Victor Creed (Sabretooth): Sabretooth's attack on Logan in Canada when he was just settling in with Bethany and that fits a pattern. What made Logan seek out the X-men in the first place was the possibility of unlocking the answers to these questions but it has been surprisingly hard to find much out about his past. Sabretooth, of course, dangles some of the tidbits before Logan maddeningly when they fight. It's clear that this is part of a cycle, but he has not had luck in learning much more than that.

⬥ Erik Lensherr (Magneto): Logan doesn't trust Magneto further than he can throw him, and is mostly on the island because Magneto feels that Jean Grey is an incredible coup for Genosha. Of course, seeing as Magneto can turn Wolverine into a puppet at any time, there is a degree of contempt there. Logan, in turn, can respect Magneto's position even as he objects to the methods. Magneto is a ruthless guy, and now he's a politician in charge of a nation. That has the Wolverine's hackles up, especially when they want to talk to Jean.

⬥ Mystique: She apparently knew Logan in the past, further back than his memory goes back, but she's not providing answers. So far, Logan isn't taking the bait.

⬥ Others?: That is the rub of having amnesia. You never know who else is out there.

Blackshields [Warhammer 40K, Horus Heresy]

Whoever makes the next move should probably get them past the landing pad and into the complex. I'm keeping the layout vague until someone needs something specific to pull a cool trick off. Lots of humans, tight corridors, and they have to keep the fight moving.

1920's Gangsters

Little Tommy

Name: Tommaso "Little Tommy" Provenzano ("Whose Big Tommy?" you ask. Tommaso Santoro, in the Mazzara crew.)
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/Nationality: Italian, illegally emigrated to the US from Palermo region of Sicily.
Occupation: Delivery driver.
Physical Description:

Under average height and stocky, Tommy manages to blend in, especially in an Italian neighborhood. He has an aquiline, very Moorish look to him; olive skin and obsidian eyes, hair combed carefully down and back. He has scars and calluses on his hands from his work. He isn't expensively dressed. He's not making that much.

Skillset:

Tommy is a surprisingly good driver and mechanic. He was apprenticed to a butcher at one point and worked kitchens to make ends meet. Mostly, he's used to hard labor and doesn't complain about having to do work, and he's added some muscle from somewhat decent nutrition in the US. Speaks perfect Italian, working on his English so it doesn't stand out as much. He's got a little work to do, but it's mostly the accent now.

History:

Tommaso's father, Paul, was killed when he was little in a typically Sicilian way; vendetta. His mother didn't last long past that either. Rather than stay to die by the hands of the men that Paul had a vendetta with (as generational revenge is a Sicilian thing), Tommy and his brother Peter managed to jump onto a freighter and work their way across. When they got to New York, they jumped right off. Tommy worked a number of odd jobs all his life alongside Pete until Pete passed from the influenza outbreak of 1918. Then it was all Tommy. He had to live on his own in Brooklyn, sometimes without an actual place to live. He knew how to keep his mouth shut and his head down.

In the course of a number of odd jobs dishwashing and cooking, he became a butcher's apprentice in Bensonhurst and then a delivery driver, working for a meat packing plant, delivering to and from the plant to the Port and points in between. In the course of delivery driving, he took money under the table to deliver other things. It was a way to make sure that he had a place to live and enough food to eat.

One day, a couple of guys came to try and force Tommy to give up the goods. Tommy turned down their offer to take a small cut of the robbery. They implied that he needed to just play along or get hurt and it wasn't his problem is his boss lost some product; just the way of things. He knew that if he took that money, he'd lose the job and possibly his life -- that was the price of betrayal where he came from.

Instead of waiting for them to come for him with guns, he set up a meeting with both men to 'plan.' He took them both out with a lupara when they were in an elevator on their way to the meeting. There weren't any witnesses. The murders of Luciano Morello and Santino Navarro were part of a larger gang war, and the NYPD took interest. He didn't talk when the cops arrested him and there just wasn't any real evidence. He'd been too efficient in getting rid of the gun and establishing an alibi (because delivery drivers are seen a lot). A good lawyer turned up from nowhere, a Jew from Crown Heights that knew every move.

After that arrest, Little Tommy Provenzano had a reputation, or at least the start of one. He just went back to work and kept his head down. But, by then, he caught some people's attention.

1920's Gangsters

<Snipped quote by HeySeuss>
Benny La Guardia is associated with the Scarpello Family. They are both Sicilian Families.

@Gunther

Makes sense as he's from the part of Brooklyn they're operating in anyway. Little Tommy is, unless someone has a better idea, working as an associate/hired guy for Sal Mazzara's crew, though if we stick with that idea, he's probably being looked at for button man.

1920's Gangsters

WIP, Draft and if people want to take over a role, that's cool. I didn't bother to talk about the button-men or associates under the capos.

This basically gives a sense of what the family operations are and where things are going. I just needed a Sicilian family in the traditional mold in the mix, and felt it was good to set it up in Brooklyn since East Harlem was grabbed. I don't intend to control any of this, but needed a good setup for, well, basically, mayhem and massacres.

The Scarpello Family

Ethnicity: Sicilian. Half-Sicilians are allowed to be associates but cannot be made under current rules.
Don: Donato Scarpello
Consiglieri: Anthony Geraci
Size:: < 40 - the Don has been keeping the recruitment low and overworking the crews doing the alcohol work.
Area of Influence: Brooklyn, especially around Sunset Park, Borough Park, Park Slope, Bensonhurst, Flatbush, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Bed-Stuy. Moving into Jersey as well.

Overview: The Scarpello family is a real 'Moustache Pete' operation of old world values and mafiosi credo. However, the allure of Prohibition and the increase in resources has created tensions as the organization tries to protect itself and its prime position at the South Brooklyn Terminal, expand into New Jersey and lock down even more docks, and set up front businesses for the booze distribution. The problem, of course, is that the old man is holding on too tightly, such as forbidding business dealings with non-Italians, particularly the Jews and the Blacks. There's a lot of power in the Scarpellos, but the old men just want their peace and quiet in a time of opportunity and the younger guys aren't having it. Part of what Scarpello is trying to do is keep the crews of Polumbo and Mazzara from getting too dominant, forcing a turnover.

The old guard and the young blood are a couple gunshots away from a civil war in the family. The reason it hasn't happened yet is because Tony Geraci, the consiglieri, is well-regarded on both sides and is keeping things going with shuttle diplomacy. Current operations include; docks, alcohol distribution, prostitution and extortion. There are four crews in the Scarpello family, with about 30 or so soldiers and associates, with more muscle available in the traditionally Italian parts of Brooklyn. The truth is that in a bid to control wages and skim off as much as possible, the Don has kept the numbers of soldiers dangerously low, especially in the operations that have the best growth potential but are under capos of questionable loyalty.

Caporegimes:

- Vito Polumbo - Younger and more progressive than his Don, Vito Polumbo is the guy that runs the Brooklyn docks and set up the Scarpello bootlegging operations. The shipping from other nations, the unloading and distribution comes primarily from his operations. He is, for all intents and purposes, the most powerful and lucrative single operation in the Scarpello family thanks to Prohibition and his quick recognition of it. He uses the funding to make sure that his crew are well-outfitted and loyal. Polumbo is currently in a bind because Don Scarpello wants a bigger cut of the profits during a time of growth and investment. Meanwhile, Geraci is keeping the peace, but for how long? Polumbo's crew is tough, working the docks, but Polumbo is a deal maker and has successfully negotiated with unions in the past. He keeps trying to bring on more talent, but Scarpello keeps trying to keep him in his place. Scarpello sees a threat, Polumbo sees more money. Geraci is trying to keep the two from going to war.
- Salvatore Mazzara - Another young turk in the Scarpello family, Mazzara's crew move liquor into a variety of places, starting with the brothels but then moving into other venues as the alcohol smuggling really got underway. He started off as part of the Baglio crew. However, with Prophibition, he has set up the Pappalardo Olive Oil Company as a front and is, secretly in negotiations with the Blacks to move liquor into the Harlem jazz clubs, despite the Don's prohibition on working with 'those people.' (and that's the nicest thing he has to say.) Mazzara is a dapper sort of guy, a guy that knows how to use a gun and sweet talk while holding it. Mazzara wants minimal disruption to his operations, though he is concerned that Scarpello isn't dynamic enough to keep the business going as more than his retirement fund. He is, however, Geraci's nephew and is staying on the fence, for now.
- Joseph Baglio - Part of Scarpello's old regime, Baglio focuses on protection rackets, a pretty traditional mafia undertaking. Because his territory covers much of Western Brooklyn, outside of Crown Heights and other traditionally Jewish areas, he has a lot of manpower compared to the other crews. Baglio is totally loyal to Scarpello and has the bulk of the family's muscle.

@Sterling

Blackshields [Warhammer 40K, Horus Heresy]

To clarify, since Jb asked a good question, they are in a garrison facility that is still under construction in the wake of the Great Crusade. They need to figure out how to blow up the governor's residence, or just get in there and kill the governor. There are multiple options in terms of using the garrison's vehicles and armory to achieve that. If you want to come up with a fun way to off the Governor, by all means, let's do that.

Blackshields [Warhammer 40K, Horus Heresy]

The first kill was with a bolter, but after that, he moved to his chainsword, cutting with a controlled fury and economy of motion. Nothing was wasted. It was the lesson he learned in the Heresy's opening days, to conserve everything he had. The bolter fell into place on its harness and the chainsword started up with a roar. It shredded flesh and made a mess, but it did the job. Even with the promethium that fueled the chainsword, he was absolutely careful to use the minimum to get the job done.

If the first few soldiers that died were easy kills due to the element of surprise, things got tougher when someone set up a firing position in the chamber and started firing grenades from a launcher, the automatic kind used by the Solar Auxilia, at the Astartes. His own armor was inefficiently cooled and the output was turned down, which was galling in the sense that he was used to moving faster. His armor bore him through the fighting he did on Polybius, so he valued it. But he had to repair it already and the efficiency was down from the peaks he knew when there were sufficient specialists in his legion to maintain equipment. Still, it was fast enough to let him take cover when the grenades started hitting nearby. It was strong enough to protect him from the shrapnel that flew about. The ceramite withstood that test, even if it was degraded from prior service and insufficient maintenance.

With the grenades coming down around him, there was limited time. Someone had to get that grenadier. Working his way through the cargo containers in the area, using the cover, he closed in on the firing position. Power armor was a technological marvel, but he knew that it was a finite thing and hard to repair. It made no sense to risk it. He'd take the calculated risk of a sprint from position to position, always understanding that the grenadier was up above on a raised defilade that protected him from direct fire. Explosions continued to crash around him, pummeling him the waves of the concussion up until he managed to get into what he considered a good firing position.

Ammunition was also precious to him, but that grenade launcher was playing havoc and was a real threat. He played an instinct and readied a frag grenade. Then, rolling around to the side of his cover, he hurled it further and faster than a normal human could have, arcing it so that it would drop on his foes. The troopers, having no personal experience of what an Astartes could do, had not estimated the lethal range for such with a hand grenade. The grenade went off with a thumping explosion in the firing position, and Prodigal Son didn't lose time. With a loping movement, he got into their firing position, which was a good one. The grenade launcher's previous wielder wouldn't object to the weapon being put to its original use; to fight the enemies of the Emperor. It might not be ideal in tight corridors, but it could be vital when used against entrenched opponents...

Blackshields [Warhammer 40K, Horus Heresy]

Sorry, there are no Adepta Sororitas at this time in the Imperium.

1920's Gangsters

Send something my way,I'd be glad to see it

@Sterling

I won't get there tonight and my work schedule can be ferocious. I basically would just stake out a Brooklyn-based family with dock interests.