Name/Nicknames: Nathan Bishop, Nate
Gender: Male
Age: 31
Race: Human - Spiritual Host
Appearance: An african-american of relatively average physical build and only just evening out at 5’10, Nate was probably the less imposing one of the two when he and Gabe were partners in the LAPD. In line with his cop days, he’s kept his hair fairly short whilst doing the same for any facial hair that dares crop up without his consent, leaving his face nicely smooth and clean-shaven and going well with his calm, hazel eyes.

Whilst in theory he has the appropriate shirt, tie and matching coat to give off the traditional appearance somewhere in the closet, Nate usually tends to stick to something simple; shirt, cargo pants, work boots and a black coat that reaches down to his waist. Tucked in under his pants is a holster for a CCW.

Personality: Whilst prone to the occasional sarcastic or joking remark, of the two detectives it’s Nate who could be considered the more light-hearted, yet focussed of the two. Despite having left the force well over a year ago, one thing that definitely hasn’t changed since he quit the force is his strong sense of justice, which he shares in common with his late partner.

In contrast to Gabe’s cynical, pessimistic demeanour and the spirit’s sarcastic remarks every couple of minutes, Nate’s the friendlier of the two and more agreeable at that - one more likely to compromise than the other and less likely to resort to throwing around objects (though having someone who can do just that on hand always helps) when looking for results. That said, he’s quite driven when he wants to be and when motivated can be just as persistent as his late partner’s stubborn.

Having come from a poor background, he sympathises with those who’ve had to deal with the same kind of upbringing and worse, taking an extremely dim view to those who’d take advantage of them with narcotics and would-be gang initiations. Likewise, whilst not exactly prejudiced, his caution towards vampires and werewolves stem from many years of dealing with the likes of the Nyctari, the Nyte Kyngs and the Hunters and likewise his partner’s dealings with the occult have led him to take an equally dim view of such matters.

Bio:

Nathan 'Nate' Bishop was once an up-and-coming detective among many working for Santa Somabra's finest with a career path that seemed to head skywards, having crawled his way out of the gutter of one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods . Partnered with and mentored by one Gabriel Ward, a senior detective who saw something in the kid, the two made a fine duo, cracking cases left and right together. Yet there was one case that had for many months proved impossible to crack, despite a wealth of information - a series of ritual murders that looked outside the typical MO of the Nyte Kyngs or even the Nyctari

Gabe took a particular interest in the case due to its similarity to a cold case from the earliest days of his own career, even going so far as to chase up his own leads outside of work in an attempt to find out what the hell was going on. It proved to be his undoing - within a few weeks, the senior detective disappeared overnight and a few days later, Nate received a phone call in the early hours of the morning delivering news that he refused to believe. Arriving at the scene, he found his partner dead - killed via the same disturbing, ritualistic method as all the others.

Despite being told by his superiors to let it go, Nate refused to allow the trail to go cold and spent months sifting through case files and evidence lockers, desperate for any lead even if it meant he hardly ate or slept because of it. Eventually Nate's superior ordered him on a paid suspension for several weeks to stop him from working himself to death, yet even that didn't deter him - instead he went and chased up his own leads as Gabe had, ignoring the immense risk he was taking - not just to his career, but to his own life.

Out of options, he tried revisiting where they'd found Gabe's body - the scene of the last murder. It occurred to Nate that there had to be some kind of connection that he could grab onto here, if only small, yet instead of a lead he found something better. For a moment, he'd have sworn he heard a familiar voice - was he losing it? He thought so, yet the voice spoke again and he recognised who it was. He turned around to face the voice and found a familiar, albeit ethereal face. Gabe.

For a moment Nate thought he'd finally lost it, or that his lack of sleep had took a toll. He panicked and made a sharp entry yet on the way out he forgot to look before he crossed the road and wound up having a disagreement with a station wagon as it turned around the corner. Blacking out for a few minutes, when he woke up he found two people standing over him - one was obviously the driver of the station wagon, the other was Gabe. Seemingly unharmed by the encounter, he quickly dismissed the driver of the station wagon and went for a long walk - hoping to shake whatever it was off. It was only when Gabe finally spoke again and this time explained his predicament:

The grisly method of execution the killer had enacted upon him was a ritual which left his spirit bound to the crime scene. Since Nate was the only one who had such a close connection with him, Gabe was able to appear - if only for a brief moment - and would've tried to explain the circumstances had it not been for the former running off. That knock on the head he'd took from the car had almost killed him, enough to briefly separate his spirit from his body if only for a few seconds. With that window of opportunity, Gabe had jumped onboard Nate's body like a passenger in a car, jumpstarting his body up in the process and pulling the two of them into a new world.

Aside from reminding Nate that, yes, this was one hell of a strange city, his presence had bestowed him with a number of tricks, one of which was the ability to immediately distinguish between the mundane and supernatural.

Under (literal) spiritual guidance, Nate used his newly-found perspective to track down his old partner’s killer - a demon’s blood addict who restrained his victims and then used precise incisions with a ritual knife to drain their blood into a circle below, where symbols were drawn. It was this addict’s delusion that, through tribute to an ancient demonic entity, they would be made a warlock, trapping the spirits of the dead at their respective murder scenes as a side effect of this tribute. Unwilling to be taken alive, the would-be ‘warlock’ was killed in the subsequent exchange of gunfire.

Of course, a fair bit of scandal ensued - Nate hadn’t exactly been subtle in his questt and when a local journalist leaned on the department about a cavalier cop who’d embarked on an unauthorised pursuit whilst already suspended, he was all but pushed into leaving the force under the implication that he’d get a payout for resigning. Yet, that didn’t mean that either he or the spirit of his partner were done. In fact, Gabe found that his so-called unfinished business wasn’t particularly tidied up just yet and with the payout he’d earned, Nate found he was able to open up a PI agency - one that turned out to be quite the successful endeavour if only by a margin.

Well over a year later and with the ‘Sombara Slayer’ roaming around, the two couldn’t help but take an interest in the case. After all, given one of them had already been taken out through the tortured logic of a serial killer, they sure as hell weren’t going to sit on their asses and watch another run free.

Other notes:
Nate's connection to a spirit allows him to immediately distinguish whether or not an individual or object is mundane or supernatural in nature. It’s akin to being able to see in colour in a colourblind environment, so to speak. This also gives Nate, to a certain degree, a sixth sense - allowing him to sense anything out of the ordinary in his environment.

Finally, this connection serves as a two-way street; basically, if he were to suffer a life threatening injury, whilst this won't heal him or give him a get-out-of-jail free ticket it'll certainly give his body a jumpstart and slightly tip the odds in his favour, as Gabe’s spirit helps anchor his own in this world.

Of course, there’s a certain side-effect to this connection; Nate’s occasionally picked up one or two mannerisms and ‘aspects’ off of Gabe due to their spiritual bond, to the point he’s gained fondness for things he once had nothing to do with (a newly acquired taste for scotch and tequila are examples) or, more noticeably and alarmingly, the colour of his eyes sometimes shifting to match Gabe’s.

• Carries a concealed CZ75 compact as a sidearm, whilst keeping an Ithaca 37 ‘Stakeout’ model in the trunk of his car. He also possesses his late partner’s sidearm of choice; a Colt 1911, though that’s usually stored away somewhere for safekeeping.
• He's quite the scifi fan and among other things he keeps a number of ‘classic’ films among his personal favourites, including Terminator and Predator among others. And yes, he's a Schwarzenegger fan too.

Name/Nicknames: Gabriel Ward, Gabe
Gender: Male
Age: 49 (At the time of his death)
Race: Spirit
Appearance: Whilst alive, Gabe stood at 5’11 and, owing to his stocky build, looked like he could knock an Orc down and then some. His hair had prematurely started graying as a consequence of his long and tiring career, though he kept it fairly short-and-simple on his head whilst across his weathered face was a neatly trimmed beard that went well with his sharp, blue eyes. As a detective, he was seldom seen without a pale-blue shirt with an appropriate tie and pants, and sometimes he was even known to wear a coat when it suited him.

Now, as a ghost - he hasn’t changed that much. Rather, he’s just gained an ethereal quality to his overall appearance, coming across as somewhat translucent with a vague unearthly outline. His eyes stand out more than anything now - having taken on an even sharper quality than they had in life, as if they were piercing into the fabric of one’s soul.

The only exception to this is when he’s pissed - in which case his form is twisted into something that resembles his body at the time of his death - complete with the haggard, blood-soaked clothes and ritualistic wounds.

Personality: Gabe has something of a cynical approach that’s complemented with sarcastic, pessimistic remarks and an incredibly dark sense of humour. If he and Nate were running a good-cop, bad-cop routine, it’s clear that Gabe would be the bad. Of course, it hasn’t helped that he’s dead - it’s not like it did him much of a favour. Without a physical body and kept within certain confines, it’s a maddening existence. Touch, taste, smell.. all of these senses and more he’s been deprived of and were he a lesser man he’d have become a bitter, unfeeling spirit that saw only vengeance, so this attitude is something of a coping mechanism for him to work through that and avoid going off that tricky abyss.

Whilst earning his trust can take some difficulty (communication issues notwithstanding), when it’s earned it’s damn-well earned and those he considers friends, he’d go to the far reaches of the underworld and back for - no matter what condition he might be in - and there’s no friend that he feels a greater degree of loyalty towards than Nate, whom he regards as family.

This all aside, he possesses a strong sense of right and wrong and a preference for justice (albeit on his terms), much alike his partner - though that doesn’t stop him from taking a ‘means to an end’ approach when it comes to putting a vice on certain perps - and has an overall sympathy for the destitute and downtrodden, despite remarks that might indicate to the contrary and shares sentiments with Nate when it comes to those who would take advantage of them.

Whilst not particularly prejudiced, he holds a particularly dim view for the occult and those that dabble in it, given the unfortunate circumstances which surrounded his death. That said, he can be sympathetic towards vampires, werewolves whom never wanted their conditions as well as the undead - having learned what it’s like to be forced into a state of being that unexpectedly altered his ‘life’ to radical degrees.

Bio: Born into one of the poorer, run-down districts of Santa Sombara, much like his eventual protégé, Gabe originally spent a few years in the military before heading back home and becoming a beat cop in the SSPD. When it became apparent that he had a knack for investigation and case work, he soon caught the eye of the detective bureau and before long was among their ranks. Over the years, he earned his place as a respected, veteran officer and eventually came across Nathan Bishop, where the events explained above soon unfolded.

Other notes:

Being a ghost with a non-corporeal form, Gabriel is capable of passing through any solid matter that doesn’t have some form of supernatural protection on it, allowing him to survey his surroundings without too much trouble - the only problem is that he’s limited in how far he can actually travel. Whilst Nate’s keeping him anchored in this world, it also means he can only move so far away from him before he’s unable to move any further - akin to trying to having an indestructible leash around his neck.

Also, being a ghost - he’s capable of causing a little poltergeist activity by screwing around with a few localised objects (unless they already have some form of protection on them) and, depending on the circumstances, he can possess the corpses of the recently deceased for a limited period of time, though in doing so he’s incapable of straying too far from Nate. Made for a hell of a joke at the funeral of some ex-big shot mobster once.

• Has an ex-wife and daughter that survived him. Still keeps tabs on them by using Nate as a proxy, though.
• Shares Nate's love for scifi and other cult classics. As it happens, being able to watch the greats in the office is a great way of relieving the eternal boredom that can come with being dead.