Appearance: With thick black hair worn down and unkempt, Edward certainly has the appearance of 'boyish.' His earth brown eyes and youthful face give him a trustworthy look about him. He tends to wear long, sturdy trousers and shoes of similar make, with plain shirts and a green (flannel on the inside) jacket when its cold out. All in all he's quite unremarkable looking. Fair skin, long legs and a slim build, with a bit of definition in his muscles from working for his father are the only other real distinguishing parts about him, other than his uplifting smile.

Background: Born almost a year after World War Two ended, on August 2nd, 1946 to James and Cammy Harth in Montana. James was an infantryman deployed in Europe during the war, having left his job at the steel mill for 3 years before returning, only to find his wife now having taken a job there as well. They soon found out they needed to work double time in order to provide for themselves, because they were about to get a baby boy.

Edward Harth grew up in a working class family. With both parents at their jobs and he alone until supper time for many years, he learned to appreciate books in his spare time, finding himself more and more enamored by the written word. In fact it would be safe to say that since age 8, he had read 3 hours a day until age 21, when he decided he did not want to only read, but create a story himself.

Unfortunately, there were many factors in his way. By age 16, he had left school to work at the mill with his father. His mother had stopped working there in order to take care of Edward's younger brothers, Shaun and Miles. Time was against him from his work and family time, as was his father in general. James Harth did nothing to discourage his habits of reading, but firmly discouraged any way to make a living that wasn't hard work with his hands. Edward had once seen his father as a hero from his war stories and hard work ethic, but slowly a rift had begun to form between them.

They had used to go camping out in Wyoming for days on end, if his father and he ever had enough time off. For a year or two, they would take Edward's little brothers as well, making their own campsite and catching their own dinner. James enjoyed it for the work involved, but Edward enjoyed it for the meaning behind it. He felt like he was a pioneer or an adventurer in one of the many stories he would read.

By age 22, Edward had gotten his own apartment down the street and a small amount of space to write a novel. However, even with all of his research and various readings, and his newfound space, he knew he couldn't quite grasp the wonders of the wider world without experiencing them for himself. He knew it was ludicrous, and downright insane as far as his family was concerned, but explorers had faced greater odds before and triumphed. He decided to save up for a year and go on a trip around the world. Unfortunately, his mother began wondering why he had shown up more and more over at their place to eat dinner, and subsequently pried it out of him that he needed to save money for a trip. With her worried sick and his father now against it, by the time it came for the flight, Edward was running away more than going off to explore. His first layover was in Anchorage...

Personality and Outlook:Edward is very curious of others and their experiences. While not nosy, expect him to ask people about themselves at least once or twice unless given a firm 'no." Contrary to that, he's often perceived as the quiet one, only opening up once he is curious or speaking about things he is passionate about (or spouting random facts that will help them in their current situation). Despite him not admitting this, he has a hard work ethic like his father and great respect to those who don't back down, so he tries not to, in turn.

He enjoys reading, writing, and walking for hours on end lost in thought. He's not had much experience with the fairer sex, though that's more for him having no life by choice when he's out of work, and the rest of his hours spent in work. He'd be shy when it comes to that sort of thing, though just like his normal day to day, he's often too lost in his books to even think about that. Introspective, idealist, and encouraging, Edward's a fine choice to get lost in the woods with!

Skills:

• Stamina: Long hours at the Steel Mill has given him the strength and energy to go a long time at his peak exertion.
• Knowledge: Having read most books under the sun, he'll know many random but relevant facts about various survival topics such as plant and animal life, how long it takes for a human body to freeze over, etc.
• Steady Hands: Working with steel and molten lead has gotten him used to being able to hold things properly and good hand eye coordination.

Weaknesses:

• Lack of Experience: He knows how to camp and survive a few days, but it's a small step compared to crashing in the boreal tundra. He'll need some time to adjust fully to their situation.
• Idealism: After he has time to adjust, his idealism will kick in and give him confidence, but it will also, in turn, make him miscalculate and become susceptible to pay less attention to his surroundings if he isn't too busy trying to be like one of the heroes of old.
• Regret: He's bogged down by regret for leaving his parents and family on a bad note, and will haunt his conscience at night, perhaps depriving him of some needed sleep.

Appearance: Isaac has a rather full figure, with broad shoulders, a barrel chest and a thick neck, reinforced by a slight layer of fat. Despite his large physique, however, Isaac definitely doesn’t look much like the hardy type, mostly thanks to a facial expression that seems to say he’s not really focused, accentuated by a shit-eating grin. Isaac’s limbs are long, and his hands and feet are large, although quite soft and gracefully shaped despite their size. His unevenly tanned skin is soft to the touch; although his left lower arm and torso are peppered with small scar marks that disrupt the coloration and the texture.

Isaac has an oval face, with blue eyes and brown hair, that doesn’t bear anything worthy of note aside from faint pockmarks scattered throughout, and a small scar on his left cheek, courtesy of an amateurish removal of the skin tag that was once there. His aquiline nose crooks slightly to the right, thanks to a car crash. Isaac’s hair is swept back, mostly to cover the slight thinning of the hair on his scalp, and partially as an imitation of Clint Eastwood’s character in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Above his lips stands a mustache of regular size, often accompanied by a five o’clock shadow thanks to his habit of procrastinating.

Background: Isaac is quick to point out that his life story hasn’t been all that worthy to tell. Whether that is true or not is up for debate, but it is an unmistakable fact that at the very least Isaac’s childhood was uneventful. His father, Samuel Graham, who would, in the future, be a veteran of the Second World War, was a high school teacher, and his mother, Margaret Graham, was likewise an elementary school teacher. The two, having met at a mutual friend’s birthday, quickly started dating, and married soon after, probably not wanting to take their chances for waiting for the ‘one’ in Montana of all places. Isaac was born not long after, in 1939.

One of Isaac’s earliest memories, around the age of 5, is that of his mother reading a letter from his father, who was in France by that time. Of course, Isaac can’t remember anything about the letter. He does, however, remember hearing about the nuclear bomb on radio, and his father hugging his mother by the entrance of the house. Overall, it can be said that, unlike many families, Isaac and his parents had gone through the Second World War without much damage. His father, a non-commissioned officer, had earned the Bronze Star in the war, and somehow, had come back unscathed, thankfully both mentally and physically.

After the war, his parents continued their regular jobs, and Isaac naturally grew up, with both his parents ending up being his class teachers sometime throughout his education. The sly Isaac used this situation to his advantage by playing his cards to get elevated grades – something his parents tried to avoid, to no avail. It was around this age that Isaac came to the conclusion that you could get things done without effort, if you knew where to position yourself. Some laws of physics from the physics lessons, twisted in his mind because of confirmation bias, also helped cement this outlook on life. Throughout primary and high school, Isaac showed himself to be sociable, and despite his acne-ridden face, quite a womanizer, at least, for his age.

Growing up proved tougher prospects for Isaac, however, as his parents got more and more irritated by his ne’er-do-well demeanor. Wanting to diffuse the tension and wanting to get away, Isaac somehow enrolled into the Richmond Professional Institute, where he found himself amongst likeminded students. Isaac actually found a passion in his life as he studied painting, a passion that started as an excuse to convince fellow students of the fairer gender to ‘strip down’ in his ‘art studio’ for ‘aesthetic’ purposes. Over time, Isaac’s means to create an intimate environment with the ladies became ends in themselves, and Isaac slowly took up photography, where a blossoming aesthetic concern merged with his basic instincts. For Isaac, the art became not only an excuse to be close with ladies, but also an idea.

Isaac, however, no matter how passionate, was lazy, and ended up having to drop out of Richmond – and, not wishing to go back to Montana, began wandering the states as some sort of drifter, one of the many that would appear in the counterculture movement. Isaac became a stringer, putting his enthusiasm about photography and people skills to good use. Often spending the least amount of effort to get the highest amount of money he could, the lad sometimes resorted to making up events to sell to papers. Eventually, he moved to San Francisco, where he hoped to immerse himself in the newly blossoming movements growing there. In San Francisco, he indulged in many things, ending up becoming part of the hippie and drug culture, where a newly found political responsibility, and encouragement from his friends, made him decide to go to Viet Nam as a war correspondent, to document the horrors and atrocities in the country.

Visiting during 1967 and 1968, Isaac quickly found himself out of his element in the hostile environment of Viet Nam, where he was consistently drained of his idealism. Isaac did not like the country – he did not like the people, he did not like the smell, he did not like the military folk, he did not like how it was harder to get drugs. The life-threatening dangers were just icing on top of it all. But, despite it all, he didn’t do a half bad job – one could almost say that the stressful environment served Isaac to get a hold of himself. But his avoidance of work reached an all time high, making up stories for his editor to delay things, and just stalling.

Isaac got his break from Viet Nam, and his big break, when he ended up in an ambush during the Tet Offensive, where he was wounded in a car crash caused by the sudden chaos of a landmine going off in front of a convoy. Isaac used this opportunity to take some nifty pictures of the horrors of war, despite his (admittedly not at all debilitating) wounds, and exaggerated his role in the ambush to get a nice paycheck from his editor. In truth, all he had done was to take photos of the wounded soldiers, damaged equipment, gore, and the muzzle flashes coming from the woods, but getting wounded by shattered glass allowed him to twist the story, claiming he was wounded by shrapnel.

Going back to America, Isaac spent about a year living off the money he got off from spinning his story to various news outlets and selling all the photos he got there, as well as reverting to his previous lifestyle of freeloading off fellow-traveler hippies. Slowly running out of money, he decided to convince his editor to get a travel permit, claiming he would be writing a series about Southeast Asia and the perspectives of the war in the area. In truth, he just wanted to see Japan. But would he?

Personality and Outlook: Isaac has a friendly, outgoing exterior. He presents himself as someone who encourages different perspectives and outlooks on life, and claims to have a strong sociopolitical insight. His relaxed, humorous attitude easily allows people to be at home alongside him. In truth, Isaac is pretentious, selfish, and is completely unaware of this. Having made himself at home in the growing tolerance and free spirit ideologies, Isaac often abuses his privileges as ‘vagabond’ and ‘revolutionary’ to throw courtesy out of the window. Believing that people should share everything, he often helps himself with supplies of others, and, being a thinker, he often simply shouts for others to do the work. Under stress, however, Isaac’s demeanor changes – much more quick thinking and much more active, he can even be helpful, but definitely drops the pretense of being friendly, and instead turns into an annoying, constantly complaining cunt. He constantly hits on women to see how liberated they are mentally, and if they are, often attempts to consummate a physical bond with his fellow traveler. Refusing his advances easily helps you get branded as a creature of the past, a misogynist, and a blind idiot. On the other hand, he defends women’s rights, claiming that they should be free to express themselves mentally and (not that he would say it out loud, but especially) physically.

Skills:

Man of the Commons – Isaac can easily become friends with people. He’s extremely sociable, even annoying to an extent, and is quick to help people get a better understanding of things. He has a penchant for choosing the ‘right’ side in an argument, often the populous one, for the majority’s opinion is never wrong, and can easily convince people.

Artist – Isaac’s got good visual memory, and can easily make competent sketches, or describe things, where they’re different, where they’re weak, where they’re strong. Skilled with prose as well, he can polish his bullshitting in a way that it becomes an intricate, believable, and competent story. He’d be one hell of a writer, if he had the mettle to actually pick it up.

Vagabond – Having spent a few years drifting from state to state, Isaac has a vague idea of how to stay in one piece in the wild – he can tell mushrooms apart, can easily identify hallucinogenic ones, and can prepare a simple campfire. Having had to deal with shady people in the past as part of his life as drifter, he can also swing a mean left hook, but doesn’t have much except his natural body strength to back it up.

Weaknesses:

Genius – Isaac’s probably got the right opinion, and if he’s wrong, it’s probably because everyone, including himself, is looking at things from the wrong perspective, and he’s willing to change perspective to put himself in the right position. Needless to say, most people don’t have the free mind necessary to appreciate this constant change of position.

Free Spirit – Isaac does not believe in responsibilities, nor does he believe in antique concepts such as property, or set-up work. A true Marxist, he does things he wants to do when he wants to, for he does not want to be alienated from labor, and will not be goaded by those still too deeply ingrained in the conservative Western mindset to be consistent about his actions. An impressionist, he also has a habit of expressing things as they appear to him, and not as what they are.

Child of the Spirits – Isaac enjoys communing with other planes of existence through use of enlightening substances, which coincidentally seem to be outlawed in society, and hard to come by in the wild. This lack of contact with his soul ancestors has put him on a constant edge, where he sees things as they are, very cruel, and lacking in chi.