Kalleth

Ban the Person above you

Banned. @Carmen Sandiego

Apparently the way we do these things now is just leave a long line of dots.

So.

................................................................................................................

@Kenshi Banned for interrupting.

Ban the Person above you

Banned for calling the kettle black while displaying pot-like amounts of noir.

Microfiction and Poetry contest #4

Just submitted something pretty experimental and off-beat, but I hope people find it interesting!

RPGC #30 - Celestial Lights (Prompt and discussion)

@Odin Have you finished your entry yet?

Ban the Person above you

Banned for daring to theorize that happiness is real, instead of the soul-crushing sadness that permeates the nihilistic void of the endless abyss of space.

RPGC #23: InGlorious - Discussion

@Frizan Is the contest a no-contest then? What's up? At the very least, I'd like to get started on an entry for the next contest so if nothing's doing with this one, could we get some acknowledgement of that?

☀ THE DEVOURER CYCLE — Act I ☀

Character Sheet: Oswin of Rigobod

Have you ever thought about where stories come from? Why people tell stories, and how mere series of events are molded and shaped into legends and tales that survive and even outlast empires? Since the dawn of mankind, such questions have run wild in the minds of those who make their craft that of the written, spoken, sung. In Rigobod, a young lad was born and weaned on the stories of glory and great hunts by his father. Years passed and the boy became a man, though not before his unmatched love for stories led him to seek training as a menestrel. A year and seven days before Oswin's 18th birth day, his father went out to sea on the hunt. Oswin never saw him again. The hunting boat did return eventually, severely battered, burnt, and barely in one piece. The vengeful words on the lips of the broken men were poison to Oswin's innocence, as they spoke of "Nhirian bastards, who capture men for their damned campaign against the Thraxians." From that day on, Oswin sat at the docks with a hungry look in his eye, waiting patiently for more news from far-flung Gwidlings come home to tell their tales. It’s said the seas call men in their own time, once they have matured to the point where the bounds of their birthplaces can raise them no longer. Oswin felt this call when he had learned of the Thraxian cause and their Great Council. Filled to the brim with legends, tales, myths, and yarns of utter fanciful nonsense, Oswin felt a hunger to find those who stole his father and wreak vengeance on them. The honeyed wine of rumour seduced the young man, and the wind took him across the sea on the deck of a Gwidlic merchant’s ship. A Thraxian port town of the Carogacts was the Gwidling’s landing, where he heard that the chieftain had not long left for the meeting place. Oswin rushed down the road, heedless of the risks he was taking, in order to meet this chieftain and join his forces. ... The meeting of a nation’s tribes to rally against an overwhelming and ruinous empire. Chieftains and mercenaries from the world over banding together, to either break the old power or die together trying. All the makings of a civilization-defining legend, and all that was missing was a suitable chronicler to record and immortalize the events, as they happened. No longer, it would come to pass, as Oswin of Rigobod raced toward the mountains and landed in the company of one of the many chieftains. An oddity amongst warriors and warlords, his strength of arm far inferior to the strength of his wit, Oswin hoped to inspire hope and witness heroism. It would remain to be seen whether his hopes would soar or plummet, alongside the Thraxian cause.	Oswin has the rugged appearance of a Gwidlic youth, sporting blonde-brown shoulder-length curls and a youthful face. His wide green eyes can be seen gawking at every new sight to be seen in his environs, and is himself not particularly remarkable in dress, tending to wear garments of muted colours. Oswin’s stature is not small, but he is not muscular by any measure even if he is taller than average. As a man barely grown, Oswin’s scruffy beard is kept to a close shave, although it is doubtful any would call his fuzz a beard in the first place. Overall, Oswin is a youthful nondescript man who emphasizes cleanliness. Age: 19 Skills & Talents: As a Menestrel, Oswin is competent at Writing, Singing, Memorizing, Carving, and Poetry. As a Gwidling, he also has passing skill in Fishing, and is an Amateur Sailor. Traits: Well-Spoken, Attentive, Naive, Imaginative, Proud, Jealous Allegiances: Gwidlic Gods, God of Skalds, Storms, and Songs (Bragi), Gwidlic Kingdoms, Rigobod, Lubbo Bladetaker Rank & Role: RETAINER

RPGC #23: InGlorious - Discussion

<Snipped quote by SleepingSilence>

You ought to be disqualified. You broke the rules.
You're acting self important, like you are above being critiqued after doing something as offensive as rewriting other peoples' stories the way you would have written them and labeling said revisions as better (who does that?! It's like grabbing the Mona Lisa, throwing a mustache on it and telling Da Vinci that that's how it should have looked the whole time). You give other people scathing critiques and you get one back and have the gall to say that even the reviews are wrong.

Get over yourself, bro.

@RedVII

Which rule was broken? Silence wasn't rewriting stories, but providing constructive criticism. Aren't you being a little bit presumptuous yourself with your comment about the Mona Lisa? I don't think any of my fellow writers are quite so self-important as to dare to think that they're a Da Vinci of writing. Personally, I live for the critiques almost more than the writing itself, for the artistic pursuit of the thing. All we can ever aspire to is to improve, and we need the critiques of others to do so. We want feedback as writers, or why bother sharing it at all?

I wouldn't call Silence's critiques of the various stories scathing. In every review, Silence went through the text and tried to give two cents on how to make the story succeed as much as possible. You'll notice if you inspect each review, while there are things that Silence would remove, would change, every review included comments about aspects of the story that worked well. Please give an example of what you are referring to as scathing, because reviews that only provide positive feedback are just as unhelpful as ones that give only negative feedback, but I wouldn't say those reviews were either.

Get over yourself? You didn't submit an entry, haven't provided your own reviews, critiques, or votes for any of the stories. Where is this coming from? That isn't to say that you can't comment on whatever you like but I just fail to see why you feel it necessary to disqualify somebody who has no apparent involvement with you.

Lastly, I think it's a tad dishonest to quote out of context the portions of Silence's rebuttal where the use of profanity has been prefaced by an exhaustive elaboration and substantive argument behind the frustration expressed. To reiterate what I said before, given these comments are specifically addressed in response to a critique by somebody else, I don't understand why you feel it necessary to throw your hat into the ring. It's not exactly your place to decide such things, and if you have substantive proof, I would love to see you provide some for Frizan, whose job it is to judge on these matters.

Which rule was broken?
What part of / which review was/were scathing?
Why do you care?

EDIT: And, in the intervening time it took me to respond, it appears that the person to whom the comments were addressed has replied. Civilly, and in a way which allows us all to move on. Disregard what I've said above please, if only because it's not worth the energy to bother with now.

𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖

Eitrigg “Rig” Waldmann

Artist Credit:

Lily Corradini https://www.redbubble.com/people/lillycorradini?ref=artist_title_name

[Eitrigg “Rig” Waldmann]
[29] | [Male] | [5’11”] | [AB+]

General Information

NAME: Eitrigg Eivorsen Waldmann

ALIASES // TITLES: Rig, The Rigger, Eight

SEX: Male

AGE: 29

APPEARANCE: Eitrigg appears to be a down-on-his-luck private eye, or a brooding detective on his trusty beat, or at the very least, an interesting, no, intriguing gentleman to strike up a conversation with at a bar.

Eitrigg wears his hair long, grown out to hang loose about his shoulders, and he seldom shaves. He never had the genes to grow a decent beard so he’s stuck with the perpetual scruff of the habitual drinker. He has morose brown eyes that glint in the sparse rays of natural light with a golden tint. His face gives an overall angular impression, though that is mostly because his mouth forms a quirking smirk when he’s not actively emoting. Straight teeth though, shiny and clean, not a single false or replaced molar.

Eitrigg’s mug is the most interesting thing about his appearance, given that he likes to wear nondescript clothing as force of habit. Long coats, dark vests, and mussed or stained dress shirts underneath all that are the norm. He can’t be arsed to wear ties, and his shoes had seen better days before he bought them off a Reclaimer looking for Neurosynth cash. In short, the man dresses to depress. Not hard to do in a shithole like the Reclaim Zone, and cheaper, more honest, than going to the trouble of wearing nice clean suits.

OCCUPATION: Eitrigg calls himself a middle-man, but to his clients, that’s defence counsel, to his friends, that’s chief drink-buyer, and to his enemies? ...Rig’s got no enemies. Rig makes friends of everyone, because being friends is Eitrigg’s occupation. And if some of Eitrigg’s friends get better treatment than others, well, that’s only fair. Some friends pay Rig better. There’s one thing all of Eitrigg’s friends have in common; sound legal advice, and a good drinking buddy. They’re also quite habitually stabbing each other in the back through Eitrigg.

CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION: Personal Attorney / Negotiator / Head of Campbell’s Legal Staff

Eitrigg has come into Campbell’s employ in a kind of hybrid role, both to fill the mayoral candidate’s void in legal aid, a very real liability to be certain, but also to act in his capacity as a kind of diplomatic figure in Campbell’s relations with more unsavory types. Where Campbell has need of gangs, goons, bankers, and buffoons, Eitrigg is there with a briefcase and a firm handshake. Or a bottle of hooch and a stolen cybernetic arm, as the case may be. Wait, strike that, reverse it. Defending Campbell both from teethless lawsuits and toothy hostage-takers alike, Eitrigg is the first and last defence from all things juridical and just plain hostile.

Psychological Profile

Disarming | Charming | Attentive | Deflective | Obsessive | Manipulative

PERSONAL GOAL:

”I remember hearing a long time ago, this whole continent was united, into fifty equal pieces. I wish we had something like that again. I wish I had something like that.”

Though he would never dare to let anybody know that he could ever dream of something so utterly naive, Eitrigg has visions of the megaregions coming together. The potential of uniting such disparate regions by virtue of common humanity seems next to impossible, but then, so too do the stories of a whole fifty united states, all working in concert. Eitrigg wants to revive a small piece of history, even if it means starting small, with something as seemingly insignificant as the Reclaim Zone in South City.

CAMPAIGN GOAL:

”This man has got what it takes. I just feel it in my bones. If anybody can make things better in the Reclaim Zone, it’s Dexter. And if Dexter can make something of this hellhole, I don’t see why he can’t do the same for the rest of the world.”

Eitrigg’s main reason for joining Campbell’s team revolves around ensuring that the man can act as best he can to raise South City above the ruins that it currently sulks in. Eitrigg is going to really prove that Dexter is the candidate for you, by personally visiting every single residence in the Reclaim Zone and telling you so, if that’s what it takes.

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY:

”I’m one man out of millions, trying to understand his fellow man, or woman, or artificially intelligent digitized simulation.”

Eitrigg’s personal philosophy is all about hearing people’s stories, and understanding their struggles and coming to grips with their common humanity. He adores learning new things about others, and his unabiding thirst for more perspectives on the experience of existence makes an outwardly seeming cynic a kind of closeted optimist. He thinks that most everything is relative, and given a long enough conversation, can be explained and given context. Most of the problems arise, he thinks, from when the conversation doesn’t get that far. By experiencing all walks of life, Eitrigg hopes to one day be able to unite everybody under one banner, so that every voice can be heard, every story told, and every life lived well.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY:

”You know, there’s merits to both sides of the issue. Trust me, I know.”

Eitrigg feels torn when it comes to politics, and perhaps rightfully so, given his line of work. He can find things to appreciate in all the parties’ manifestos, and even though it causes him grief from time to time, he identifies particularly with the Neo-Luddites. Not insofar as he condemns those who choose to augment themselves, but rather that he feels no urge to do the same and prefers living life naturally, without enhancements. This particular divide worries him more than the other parties because part of Eitrigg knows that without any augmentations, he won’t truly understand some of the stories that augmented people tell him.

In the voting booth? Eitrigg is a staunch supporter of the Pirate Party, despite its low support. Their values of free speech and representation closely align with Eitrigg’s own optimistic philosophy, even if he sometimes questions both their methods and the workability of a literal direct democracy.

SECRETS:

”Oh secrets, those damned things. They never do stay quiet when you want them to…”

Over his years of smooth-talking and legal jury-rigging, Eitrigg has amassed quite the vast wellspring of privileged information. He wouldn’t tell you the slightest, most innocuous little tidbit if it were to save his life, because he figures that that’s what’s saved it so far. Every time Eitrigg sees a headline about a crime boss takedown, or a corporate coup d’etat, or even a local scuffle over a marital dispute, he knows well enough to lay low and wait for things to die down. If you don’t want Eitrigg to know something, odds are he’s already found out from twenty different people who all swear they’re the only one who knows. Given these facts, Eitrigg knows more than his fair share of secrets, but he tries desperately not to keep any of his own. Except maybe his personal goal, though he considers that above all scrutiny as far as he’s concerned.

FEARS:

”You never know what’ll kill you, until it does. Everybody else will know, but for you it will always be a surprise.”

Eitrigg fears death, forgetfulness, and loss of his grip on reality. Fairly simple and easy to grasp. Consequently, he fears SPECS like the plague, partly why he has refused to augment himself at present. Eitrigg also is worth less than loose shit in a fight, and takes cover as any self-respecting lawyer would and should. So don’t go expecting any final act sacrifices or epic surprise shootouts from Mr. Waldmann, because he will disappoint you. Eitrigg also retains mild paranoia surrounding any mild to permanent impairment of his senses, given that these are how he absorbs stories from others. Thus, Eitrigg tries to take better than average care of his hearing, sight, olfactory sense, and his own ability to repeat stories in the form of oral health and hygiene. Lastly, Eitrigg has a phobia of mental hospitals, due to the real possibility of being locked up within one with one’s own faculties intact, but always in question.

REPUTATION:

”Everybody loves me! Or if they don’t love me, it’s cause they haven’t met me yet. And if they have, and they don’t love me, it’s because they don’t know me yet. And if they have, and they don’t love me, it’s because-” (Subject is interrupted loudly by the sound of something shattering. A different speaker;) “Shut up and have a drink already!”

Eitrigg is viewed by the world as a bit of an outsider, but also an everyman. Worldly but not aloof, warm but not oppressive. The world likes Eitrigg, and Eitrigg likes it back. His unifying reputational distinction, outside of his various specific roles for different audiences, is his profound love for alcohol, weak and strong, dry and bitter. Eitrigg has found that the old cliché offer to purchase a beverage works literally 100% of the time. It has never not succeeded at appeasing, assuaging, cajoling, or distracting his interlocutors. Eitrigg is half-convinced asking an executioner to fetch him a single-malt tumbler of good Texan whisky would prolong his life by at least a week and a half.

Most people tolerate Eitrigg, then befriend him, then invite him into their inner circles. His natural charisma and earnest nature make him a very likable individual. All but the most grim and hateful people will at least abide his presence, and Eitrigg does his best to foster good relations wherever he goes.

LIKES:

Stories - Have you been paying attention?
Alcohol - Drink of the gods!
VR Games - Like reading, but way cooler!
Dress Clothes - Preferably worn, and cheap, but still nicer than overalls!
People - They’re just so damned interesting, aren’t they?

DISLIKES:

Unnecessary Conflict - Make love, not war, Reclaim Zone!
Hangovers - They suck ass, and I hate them, and so do you! Don’t lie!
Being Alone - I get bored easily.
Augmentations - For myself, not for others. I don’t judge, I just don’t want to lose my mind.
Sleazy Lawyers - They give the rest of us a bad name!

QUIRKS:

Eitrigg has an overdeveloped nose, and sense of smell. He’s super sensitive to odours and can often sniff things if he smells something off. He also sniffs his hands a lot when he thinks nobody is looking.

Eitrigg’s favourite drink is too hopsy for even the most devout beer drinker, and most people are convinced that Eitrigg’s favourite brand is just pickled oatmeal based on the taste alone. He says they exaggerate, they say his discerning tastes are for briny vegetables, he gives them the bird, they chuckle, he buys them a light beer and teases them for drinking corpo piss.

Eitrigg can sing worth a hot flying damn, but it rarely comes up and his singing voice is rarely in top shape when he’s halfway through his cups.

Eitrigg’s friends call him Eight because it’s easy to shorten his name that way. They call him the Rigger because his ability to bluff at cards is unmatched.

Background Information

”My story’s not as important as yours. Come on, let’s hear it then! Don’t worry about me.”

An Insignificant Tale

Libraries were a dying breed, in 2035. The Waldmanns then, chose to live and work in a carcass. They did their best to preserve the desiccating flesh, to maintain the venerable old tomes and defend them from further decay. They were so busy with this task, it’s a wonder they had any time at all left to conceive Eitrigg Eivorsen.

Eitrigg grew up in the stacks of that library nestled away near the central districts of the Texas Sprawl, the boy knew nothing of dust storms or class warfare, except what he read in meteorological journals and defunct manifestos on old German models for economic revolution by men with funny looking beards. Eitrigg read and read, until his eyes grew red, and he would fall asleep every night tucked amongst the books. His parents made sure he had ready access to food, and tried to give him love and support even as they juggled the thousand different problems that maintaining the infrastructure of the building required. Eventually though, all good things must come to an end. And Eitrigg’s childhood was a lonely one, if not a particularly tragic one.

Eitrigg’s parents had not entertained guests in years, and in fact were seldom seen outside the library, taking to ordering food over the net. Their principle income came from a dividends set aside for public works projects that nobody was paying any attention to during the booming cybertech bubble. Eitrigg was going to meet his parents at the front entrance to the library, to tell them about that very bubble, as he’d read about the phenomenon in both a news journal and a market economics textbook he was studying. At seventeen, almost a man, Eitrigg had perused hundreds of thousands of books, with wide-ranging topics drawing from both popular science, to history, to culture, to technology and engineering, to law and economics. He was fairly certain he wanted to become a lawyer, because he’d heard they could make a lot of money, and his parents were always struggling to make ends meet. Halfway to the front entrance a tremendous explosion rocked the building, and rushed to see what was the matter.

In a not-unrelated issue, the newly appointed leader of the Texas Sprawl had finally laid eyes on a seemingly purposeless pool of money and decided to lay claim to it for usage in a civic works project of his own; building a third extension to his apartments. When he found that annoyingly, the money was being withdrawn before he could spend it, he sent enforcers to go secure the funds.

Those enforcers had gone and left by the time Eitrigg found his parents where they lay, eyes staring without seeing. One of the enforcers had carved the words “Neo-Luddite Whore!” into Eitrigg’s mother’s arm, and his father’s face… He didn’t know what augmentation could do that to flesh, and he had no intention to find out.

Several years later, and a thousand kilometres west, Eitrigg graduated from junior intern to apprentice associate at a firm in South City, trying to compete with the big corpo law firms for a piece of the pie. Unfortunately, the firm that Eitrigg was part of got tanked in an underhanded but admittedly masterful stroke of sabotage which, aside from being Eitrigg’s handiwork and the principle reason he landed a job with the corpo law firm, he was very sorry about.

Cut to the present in the midst of Eitrigg both trying to get partner status with the firm while also convincing them that the election in the Reclaim Zone is of interest and that they should support the outsider Dexter Campbell, when suddenly the news channels are all plastering images, horrible images all over their screens. Eitrigg is laughed out of the office, in a good-natured but final sense, and he goes back to his desk to sulk. As the freelance counsel for the firm, he’s not needed on any active cases, and so despite his grim assessment that there may be no point in his futile attempt to bring justice to South City, he picks up a phone and calls Campbell’s campaign office.

“Hello, my name is Eitrigg Waldmann, and I’d like to be Mr. Campbell’s legal counsel. More accurately, I want to find the son of a bitch who shot Mr. Campbell and lock him up for the next two hundred years! Oh, and I’m available for drinks later. Have you ever heard of this place called Duat?”

Operative Information

AUGMENTATIONS: None.

EQUIPMENT:

Briefcase - Carries all the legal paraphernalia Eitrigg could ever need, and plenty he doesn’t.

Engitech SCR-1-B3 Dataslate - Needed to make all the important calls, as Eitrigg is at his most useful when he can communicate with the team. Also, the dataslate allows him to make recordings, pull up cute cat videos, or broker an illegal drug deal over completely traceable networks (yes it’s entrapment, no he doesn’t care, that’s what gets shit done).

Engitech T3 Earpiece - While not as advanced as its augmentative counterpart, the less invasionary detachable earpiece suits Eitrigg’s purposes nicely, by both functioning as a tool for face-to-face diplomacy and some light espionage. The T3 translates, transmits, and transfers sound to and from a private server linked up to Eitrigg’s dataslate. As the earpiece advertises, it grants Eitrigg simultaneous translation of speech, alongside the ability to amplify sounds over long distances or through sufficiently thin materials, allowing Eitrigg to not only understand and speak any language, but also to eavesdrop like no other.

SKILLS:

Charisma - As elaborated above, Eitrigg is very likable and can enter virtually any social situation, if prepared, with ease. His skills quickly slip if he is taken aback or caught off-guard, but his ability to read social cues and norms is nigh unequaled. In another life, it might have made him an excellent spy, whereas instead, it just lets him get where other people can’t in order to discuss things that would never otherwise be discussed. Oh, ha. Maybe he is a spy. Would you like him more if he said he was?

Legal Practice - Years of experience with a pair of law firms alongside an encyclopedic reading of case law and legal textbooks has granted Eitrigg a gift in championing and/or defending his clients in court. He was on the rise to partner at his respective firm before his ideals got in the way of a promotion.

Persuasion - Eitrigg’s rhetorical ability has gotten him into and out more fights than he can count, and it is above all else his best and only weapon in fear of his life. Often rumoured to have been given a fabled, rare augmentation from a ripperdoc that gave him a silver tongue though he swears that it’s all bullshit, Eitrigg is uncommonly good at talking circles around other people.

FLAWS:

Obsession - Once Eitrigg is focused on a task, he pursues it relentlessly and recklessly. Little if anything can steer him from, for example, finding out why a woman’s child was murdered but she was left alive, nor whether that shiny line at the end of the hallway really is a tripwire, and if so, what the tripwire activates. Perhaps an artifact of the days where Eitrigg could do nothing but sit and read for hours on end, seeking answers to questions his parents couldn’t answer, it remains nevertheless, a glaring issue in Eitrigg’s current employment situation.

Pacifist - While Eitrigg is quite capable of fucking people over in court, or by using mind games to trick them, he has an aversion to physical violence which overrides many of his higher functions. Eitrigg can describe fifty-six ways to disembowel a man with augmented gastric muscles (Yeah, that Reclaimer had issues, but his struggle with mood swings was enthralling), but if you tell him he needs to stab somebody or else they will kill him, he’ll die. This may not be an issue as long as there are others around to defend him, but Eitrigg’s staunch resistance to committing acts of violence puts him at a distinct disadvantage with the rest of the populace of the Reclaim Zone.

Web of Secrets - Eitrigg has been involved with many secretive goings since he came to South City, and as such there are many individuals and organizations who worry about what he knows, and who knows what he knows. Considering that Eitrigg just aligned himself with a seemingly incorruptible mayoral candidate, there are certainly powerful people who may feel that it’s worthwhile to put a target on Eitrigg’s back. One, he may not even know is there. Not every deal worked out in his favour after all, and some of the ones that did ended poorly for the other guy… Just not poorly enough.

NOTES:

Relationship Table Template

Character name	Relationship
[Name of other character]	[Write out your character's opinion and relationship with the character in question.]

𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖

Hi there. I'm interested. I figured this was a very "Eitrigg" thing to do, so I'm just going to leave this here. Really fascinated with this RP, even though I'm kind of a Cyberpunk noob. Hope it's maybe to your liking, and that this RP isn't dead, and that you may deign to have me along for the ride? Cheers!

Eitrigg “Rig” Waldmann

Artist Credit:

Lily Corradini https://www.redbubble.com/people/lillycorradini?ref=artist_title_name

[Eitrigg “Rig” Waldmann]
[29] | [Male] | [5’11”] | [AB+]

General Information

NAME: Eitrigg Eivorsen Waldmann

ALIASES // TITLES: Rig, The Rigger, Eight

SEX: Male

AGE: 29

APPEARANCE: Eitrigg appears to be a down-on-his-luck private eye, or a brooding detective on his trusty beat, or at the very least, an interesting, no, intriguing gentleman to strike up a conversation with at a bar.

Eitrigg wears his hair long, grown out to hang loose about his shoulders, and he seldom shaves. He never had the genes to grow a decent beard so he’s stuck with the perpetual scruff of the habitual drinker. He has morose brown eyes that glint in the sparse rays of natural light with a golden tint. His face gives an overall angular impression, though that is mostly because his mouth forms a quirking smirk when he’s not actively emoting. Straight teeth though, shiny and clean, not a single false or replaced molar.

Eitrigg’s mug is the most interesting thing about his appearance, given that he likes to wear nondescript clothing as force of habit. Long coats, dark vests, and mussed or stained dress shirts underneath all that are the norm. He can’t be arsed to wear ties, and his shoes had seen better days before he bought them off a Reclaimer looking for Neurosynth cash. In short, the man dresses to depress. Not hard to do in a shithole like the Reclaim Zone, and cheaper, more honest, than going to the trouble of wearing nice clean suits.

OCCUPATION: Eitrigg calls himself a middle-man, but to his clients, that’s defence counsel, to his friends, that’s chief drink-buyer, and to his enemies? ...Rig’s got no enemies. Rig makes friends of everyone, because being friends is Eitrigg’s occupation. And if some of Eitrigg’s friends get better treatment than others, well, that’s only fair. Some friends pay Rig better. There’s one thing all of Eitrigg’s friends have in common; sound legal advice, and a good drinking buddy. They’re also quite habitually stabbing each other in the back through Eitrigg.

CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION: Personal Attorney / Negotiator / Head of Campbell’s Legal Staff

Eitrigg has come into Campbell’s employ in a kind of hybrid role, both to fill the mayoral candidate’s void in legal aid, a very real liability to be certain, but also to act in his capacity as a kind of diplomatic figure in Campbell’s relations with more unsavory types. Where Campbell has need of gangs, goons, bankers, and buffoons, Eitrigg is there with a briefcase and a firm handshake. Or a bottle of hooch and a stolen cybernetic arm, as the case may be. Wait, strike that, reverse it. Defending Campbell both from teethless lawsuits and toothy hostage-takers alike, Eitrigg is the first and last defence from all things juridical and just plain hostile.

Psychological Profile

Disarming | Charming | Attentive | Deflective | Obsessive | Manipulative

PERSONAL GOAL:

”I remember hearing a long time ago, this whole continent was united, into fifty equal pieces. I wish we had something like that again. I wish I had something like that.”

Though he would never dare to let anybody know that he could ever dream of something so utterly naive, Eitrigg has visions of the megaregions coming together. The potential of uniting such disparate regions by virtue of common humanity seems next to impossible, but then, so too do the stories of a whole fifty united states, all working in concert. Eitrigg wants to revive a small piece of history, even if it means starting small, with something as seemingly insignificant as the Reclaim Zone in South City.

CAMPAIGN GOAL:

”This man has got what it takes. I just feel it in my bones. If anybody can make things better in the Reclaim Zone, it’s Dexter. And if Dexter can make something of this hellhole, I don’t see why he can’t do the same for the rest of the world.”

Eitrigg’s main reason for joining Campbell’s team revolves around ensuring that the man can act as best he can to raise South City above the ruins that it currently sulks in. Eitrigg is going to really prove that Dexter is the candidate for you, by personally visiting every single residence in the Reclaim Zone and telling you so, if that’s what it takes.

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY:

”I’m one man out of millions, trying to understand his fellow man, or woman, or artificially intelligent digitized simulation.”

Eitrigg’s personal philosophy is all about hearing people’s stories, and understanding their struggles and coming to grips with their common humanity. He adores learning new things about others, and his unabiding thirst for more perspectives on the experience of existence makes an outwardly seeming cynic a kind of closeted optimist. He thinks that most everything is relative, and given a long enough conversation, can be explained and given context. Most of the problems arise, he thinks, from when the conversation doesn’t get that far. By experiencing all walks of life, Eitrigg hopes to one day be able to unite everybody under one banner, so that every voice can be heard, every story told, and every life lived well.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY:

”You know, there’s merits to both sides of the issue. Trust me, I know.”

Eitrigg feels torn when it comes to politics, and perhaps rightfully so, given his line of work. He can find things to appreciate in all the parties’ manifestos, and even though it causes him grief from time to time, he identifies particularly with the Neo-Luddites. Not insofar as he condemns those who choose to augment themselves, but rather that he feels no urge to do the same and prefers living life naturally, without enhancements. This particular divide worries him more than the other parties because part of Eitrigg knows that without any augmentations, he won’t truly understand some of the stories that augmented people tell him.

In the voting booth? Eitrigg is a staunch supporter of the Pirate Party, despite its low support. Their values of free speech and representation closely align with Eitrigg’s own optimistic philosophy, even if he sometimes questions both their methods and the workability of a literal direct democracy.

SECRETS:

”Oh secrets, those damned things. They never do stay quiet when you want them to…”

Over his years of smooth-talking and legal jury-rigging, Eitrigg has amassed quite the vast wellspring of privileged information. He wouldn’t tell you the slightest, most innocuous little tidbit if it were to save his life, because he figures that that’s what’s saved it so far. Every time Eitrigg sees a headline about a crime boss takedown, or a corporate coup d’etat, or even a local scuffle over a marital dispute, he knows well enough to lay low and wait for things to die down. If you don’t want Eitrigg to know something, odds are he’s already found out from twenty different people who all swear they’re the only one who knows. Given these facts, Eitrigg knows more than his fair share of secrets, but he tries desperately not to keep any of his own. Except maybe his personal goal, though he considers that above all scrutiny as far as he’s concerned.

FEARS:

”You never know what’ll kill you, until it does. Everybody else will know, but for you it will always be a surprise.”

Eitrigg fears death, forgetfulness, and loss of his grip on reality. Fairly simple and easy to grasp. Consequently, he fears SPECS like the plague, partly why he has refused to augment himself at present. Eitrigg also is worth less than loose shit in a fight, and takes cover as any self-respecting lawyer would and should. So don’t go expecting any final act sacrifices or epic surprise shootouts from Mr. Waldmann, because he will disappoint you. Eitrigg also retains mild paranoia surrounding any mild to permanent impairment of his senses, given that these are how he absorbs stories from others. Thus, Eitrigg tries to take better than average care of his hearing, sight, olfactory sense, and his own ability to repeat stories in the form of oral health and hygiene. Lastly, Eitrigg has a phobia of mental hospitals, due to the real possibility of being locked up within one with one’s own faculties intact, but always in question.

REPUTATION:

”Everybody loves me! Or if they don’t love me, it’s cause they haven’t met me yet. And if they have, and they don’t love me, it’s because they don’t know me yet. And if they have, and they don’t love me, it’s because-” (Subject is interrupted loudly by the sound of something shattering. A different speaker;) “Shut up and have a drink already!”

Eitrigg is viewed by the world as a bit of an outsider, but also an everyman. Worldly but not aloof, warm but not oppressive. The world likes Eitrigg, and Eitrigg likes it back. His unifying reputational distinction, outside of his various specific roles for different audiences, is his profound love for alcohol, weak and strong, dry and bitter. Eitrigg has found that the old cliché offer to purchase a beverage works literally 100% of the time. It has never not succeeded at appeasing, assuaging, cajoling, or distracting his interlocutors. Eitrigg is half-convinced asking an executioner to fetch him a single-malt tumbler of good Texan whisky would prolong his life by at least a week and a half.

Most people tolerate Eitrigg, then befriend him, then invite him into their inner circles. His natural charisma and earnest nature make him a very likable individual. All but the most grim and hateful people will at least abide his presence, and Eitrigg does his best to foster good relations wherever he goes.

LIKES:

Stories - Have you been paying attention?
Alcohol - Drink of the gods!
VR Games - Like reading, but way cooler!
Dress Clothes - Preferably worn, and cheap, but still nicer than overalls!
People - They’re just so damned interesting, aren’t they?

DISLIKES:

Unnecessary Conflict - Make love, not war, Reclaim Zone!
Hangovers - They suck ass, and I hate them, and so do you! Don’t lie!
Being Alone - I get bored easily.
Augmentations - For myself, not for others. I don’t judge, I just don’t want to lose my mind.
Sleazy Lawyers - They give the rest of us a bad name!

QUIRKS:

Eitrigg has an overdeveloped nose, and sense of smell. He’s super sensitive to odours and can often sniff things if he smells something off. He also sniffs his hands a lot when he thinks nobody is looking.

Eitrigg’s favourite drink is too hopsy for even the most devout beer drinker, and most people are convinced that Eitrigg’s favourite brand is just pickled oatmeal based on the taste alone. He says they exaggerate, they say his discerning tastes are for briny vegetables, he gives them the bird, they chuckle, he buys them a light beer and teases them for drinking corpo piss.

Eitrigg can sing worth a hot flying damn, but it rarely comes up and his singing voice is rarely in top shape when he’s halfway through his cups.

Eitrigg’s friends call him Eight because it’s easy to shorten his name that way. They call him the Rigger because his ability to bluff at cards is unmatched.

Background Information

”My story’s not as important as yours. Come on, let’s hear it then! Don’t worry about me.”

An Insignificant Tale

Libraries were a dying breed, in 2035. The Waldmanns then, chose to live and work in a carcass. They did their best to preserve the desiccating flesh, to maintain the venerable old tomes and defend them from further decay. They were so busy with this task, it’s a wonder they had any time at all left to conceive Eitrigg Eivorsen.

Eitrigg grew up in the stacks of that library nestled away near the central districts of the Texas Sprawl, the boy knew nothing of dust storms or class warfare, except what he read in meteorological journals and defunct manifestos on old German models for economic revolution by men with funny looking beards. Eitrigg read and read, until his eyes grew red, and he would fall asleep every night tucked amongst the books. His parents made sure he had ready access to food, and tried to give him love and support even as they juggled the thousand different problems that maintaining the infrastructure of the building required. Eventually though, all good things must come to an end. And Eitrigg’s childhood was a lonely one, if not a particularly tragic one.

Eitrigg’s parents had not entertained guests in years, and in fact were seldom seen outside the library, taking to ordering food over the net. Their principle income came from a dividends set aside for public works projects that nobody was paying any attention to during the booming cybertech bubble. Eitrigg was going to meet his parents at the front entrance to the library, to tell them about that very bubble, as he’d read about the phenomenon in both a news journal and a market economics textbook he was studying. At seventeen, almost a man, Eitrigg had perused hundreds of thousands of books, with wide-ranging topics drawing from both popular science, to history, to culture, to technology and engineering, to law and economics. He was fairly certain he wanted to become a lawyer, because he’d heard they could make a lot of money, and his parents were always struggling to make ends meet. Halfway to the front entrance a tremendous explosion rocked the building, and rushed to see what was the matter.

In a not-unrelated issue, the newly appointed leader of the Texas Sprawl had finally laid eyes on a seemingly purposeless pool of money and decided to lay claim to it for usage in a civic works project of his own; building a third extension to his apartments. When he found that annoyingly, the money was being withdrawn before he could spend it, he sent enforcers to go secure the funds.

Those enforcers had gone and left by the time Eitrigg found his parents where they lay, eyes staring without seeing. One of the enforcers had carved the words “Neo-Luddite Whore!” into Eitrigg’s mother’s arm, and his father’s face… He didn’t know what augmentation could do that to flesh, and he had no intention to find out.

Several years later, and a thousand kilometres west, Eitrigg graduated from junior intern to apprentice associate at a firm in South City, trying to compete with the big corpo law firms for a piece of the pie. Unfortunately, the firm that Eitrigg was part of got tanked in an underhanded but admittedly masterful stroke of sabotage which, aside from being Eitrigg’s handiwork and the principle reason he landed a job with the corpo law firm, he was very sorry about.

Cut to the present in the midst of Eitrigg both trying to get partner status with the firm while also convincing them that the election in the Reclaim Zone is of interest and that they should support the outsider Dexter Campbell, when suddenly the news channels are all plastering images, horrible images all over their screens. Eitrigg is laughed out of the office, in a good-natured but final sense, and he goes back to his desk to sulk. As the freelance counsel for the firm, he’s not needed on any active cases, and so despite his grim assessment that there may be no point in his futile attempt to bring justice to South City, he picks up a phone and calls Campbell’s campaign office.

“Hello, my name is Eitrigg Waldmann, and I’d like to be Mr. Campbell’s legal counsel. More accurately, I want to find the son of a bitch who shot Mr. Campbell and lock him up for the next two hundred years! Oh, and I’m available for drinks later. Have you ever heard of this place called Duat?”

Operative Information

AUGMENTATIONS: None.

EQUIPMENT:

Briefcase - Carries all the legal paraphernalia Eitrigg could ever need, and plenty he doesn’t.

Engitech SCR-1-B3 Dataslate - Needed to make all the important calls, as Eitrigg is at his most useful when he can communicate with the team. Also, the dataslate allows him to make recordings, pull up cute cat videos, or broker an illegal drug deal over completely traceable networks (yes it’s entrapment, no he doesn’t care, that’s what gets shit done).

Engitech T3 Earpiece - While not as advanced as its augmentative counterpart, the less invasionary detachable earpiece suits Eitrigg’s purposes nicely, by both functioning as a tool for face-to-face diplomacy and some light espionage. The T3 translates, transmits, and transfers sound to and from a private server linked up to Eitrigg’s dataslate. As the earpiece advertises, it grants Eitrigg simultaneous translation of speech, alongside the ability to amplify sounds over long distances or through sufficiently thin materials, allowing Eitrigg to not only understand and speak any language, but also to eavesdrop like no other.

SKILLS:

Charisma - As elaborated above, Eitrigg is very likable and can enter virtually any social situation, if prepared, with ease. His skills quickly slip if he is taken aback or caught off-guard, but his ability to read social cues and norms is nigh unequaled. In another life, it might have made him an excellent spy, whereas instead, it just lets him get where other people can’t in order to discuss things that would never otherwise be discussed. Oh, ha. Maybe he is a spy. Would you like him more if he said he was?

Legal Practice - Years of experience with a pair of law firms alongside an encyclopedic reading of case law and legal textbooks has granted Eitrigg a gift in championing and/or defending his clients in court. He was on the rise to partner at his respective firm before his ideals got in the way of a promotion.

Persuasion - Eitrigg’s rhetorical ability has gotten him into and out more fights than he can count, and it is above all else his best and only weapon in fear of his life. Often rumoured to have been given a fabled, rare augmentation from a ripperdoc that gave him a silver tongue though he swears that it’s all bullshit, Eitrigg is uncommonly good at talking circles around other people.

FLAWS:

Obsession - Once Eitrigg is focused on a task, he pursues it relentlessly and recklessly. Little if anything can steer him from, for example, finding out why a woman’s child was murdered but she was left alive, nor whether that shiny line at the end of the hallway really is a tripwire, and if so, what the tripwire activates. Perhaps an artifact of the days where Eitrigg could do nothing but sit and read for hours on end, seeking answers to questions his parents couldn’t answer, it remains nevertheless, a glaring issue in Eitrigg’s current employment situation.

Pacifist - While Eitrigg is quite capable of fucking people over in court, or by using mind games to trick them, he has an aversion to physical violence which overrides many of his higher functions. Eitrigg can describe fifty-six ways to disembowel a man with augmented gastric muscles (Yeah, that Reclaimer had issues, but his struggle with mood swings was enthralling), but if you tell him he needs to stab somebody or else they will kill him, he’ll die. This may not be an issue as long as there are others around to defend him, but Eitrigg’s staunch resistance to committing acts of violence puts him at a distinct disadvantage with the rest of the populace of the Reclaim Zone.

Web of Secrets - Eitrigg has been involved with many secretive goings since he came to South City, and as such there are many individuals and organizations who worry about what he knows, and who knows what he knows. Considering that Eitrigg just aligned himself with a seemingly incorruptible mayoral candidate, there are certainly powerful people who may feel that it’s worthwhile to put a target on Eitrigg’s back. One, he may not even know is there. Not every deal worked out in his favour after all, and some of the ones that did ended poorly for the other guy… Just not poorly enough.

NOTES:

Relationship Table Template

Character name	Relationship
[Name of other character]	[Write out your character's opinion and relationship with the character in question.]