Roman's Scrapbin

[Roman]

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

H E L L B L A Z E R

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^{_{J O H N C O N S T A N T I N E ♦ U N E M P L O Y E D ♦ E N G L A N D ♦ I N D E P E N D E N T}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

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^{"S'just the way of it. We all sell our souls sooner or later."}

This Constantine is young. He's just been released from Ravenscar after an eighteen-month incarceration, with no home, family, friends or life to return to. His sister is still disappeared; his mother is still dead; his father still may as well be. He's a blank slate to carve scars and stories into, and there's a clear vision to begin setting him up as the equally legendary and infamous mage we know from DC today.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

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Description

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

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Ravenscar Psychiatric Hospital

A large mental health facility in the North of England, Ravenscar has existed in one form or another for hundred of years, and will exist for a hundred more. The 'treatment' used within is questionable and often outdated, and the staff are often negligent or outright cruel. It is not a place of dedicated healing, and most patients do not leave. John Constantine was one of the lucky few - but the fear that his fragile psyche will lead back to that shadowy building hangs over him eternally.

Cheryl Constantine

John's elder sister, who cared for John during their childhood and did her best to protect the both of them from their father. John and Cheryl enjoy a deep bond with each other via their shared childhood trauma, but also find it difficult to spend time together due to the memories that tend to resurface. Two years ago, Cheryl disappeared in mysterious circumstances, and shortly afterward John started experiencing horrific nightmares and strange visions. Coupled with his grief and the inability of all invovled to find her, he suffered a nervous break, and was committed to Ravenscar. Cheryl remains missing, and John refuses to believe she is dead.

Thomas Constantine

John and Cheryl's alcoholic, abusive, general degenerate father. still in Liverpool. With several misdemeanor crimes on his record, he works basic labour at the docks, and uses the money to drink himself to death. John reckons he's well over halfway there; with a bit of luck, he'll do himself in by the end of the year.

S A M P L E P O S T:

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Leeds. June. 2006. John was ten, Cheryl fourteen. Summer in Liverpool, as much as Liverpool could allow, and the sky was covered by a pallid shroud of grey clouds. They were collecting change - running through the streets, spotting shrapnel on the floor, on abandoned tables, in phoneboxes and ticket machines. John's pockets rattled melodically with coins as he joked, jostled, teased and cracked wise. Cheryl downplayed her amusement but could not stifle a chuckle here and there.

At a dockside cafe, Cheryl distracted the owner with meandering, protracted questions about the menu, while John took the opportunity to dip his hand into the tip jar and came up with a few more silvers than he had gone in with. Cheryl had ordered cola and sandwiches and the pair ate outside; when the owner turned to serve another customer, the pair had ran, laughing at themselves and each other as the frustrated shouts grew quieter and quieter behind them.

Back on the high street they ducked into a Boots and found a disposable camera; John emptying his pockets into Cheryl's outstretched hands so that she could count out their collection. They had only scrap left after their purchase, but they left the coins and the plastic wrapping of the camera on the counter behind them as they left with their prize. They filled the camera roll in only a few short hours, and then returned to Boots to develop the film. The lady behind the counter huffed and puffed as they turned out their pockets to pay the fee, and eventually, just waived it entirely as their performance grew too tedious to deal with any longer.

John and Cheryl sat on a street bench in the fading sunlight, thumbing eagerly through their envelope of photographs. Many were unfortunately marred by poor lighting, lens glare, or even intrusions from John's clumsy fingers as he had played with the camera. But one picture stood out: Cheryl, standing center frame with the Royal Albert Docks behind her, smiling and laughing at the John behind the camera. The clouds had opened up in a moment of serendipity to stream sunlight down onto the water, and it bounced off the surface of the docks to light up the photo from behind. To John, the photo was remarkable, perhaps the greatest accomplishment of his young life so far; it held a paradoxically fleeting and infinite moment of serenity, and seemed to capture an angelic quality about Cheryl. The photo was a gleaming representation of John's sister through John's eyes; he loved it, and her, and they spent the rest of the evening delaying their return home any way they knew how.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

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[Roman]

Simulacrum - in a hyper-future cyberpunk world, digital personas are a massive part of everyone's individual national identity. when a select few go rogue and their real life counterparts become wanted, black-listed fugitives, they must work around and against the system to reclaim their identities and old lives.

City?

Factions?

Notable NPCs?

Internet/digital realm?

Neighboring cities?

City districts/outskirts?

[Roman]

T H E H Y L I A N S

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : H Y R U L E _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : H Y L I A | T H E S A G E O F L I G H T | T H E T R I F O R C E _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E R O Y A L F A M I L Y ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Hylians are a sub-race of Humans, the dominant species of Hyrule, and one that resides near-globally, their absence only truly felt in the inner cores of the homes of the other races of Hyrule. Hylians are the Chosen race, and are faithful to the Golden Goddesses, Din, Farore, and Nayru, who formed the land of Hyrule and gave life to Hylians. Hylians resemble Humans, but are usually taller and have long, pointed ears. While not naturally attuned, Hylians are capable of a variety of magics. Hylian dress is usually simplistic and functional, mostly tunics, belts, and trousers with work boots for men, and tunics or dresses with flat shoes for women. Most Hylian clothing is stitched with brightly-colored thread in a range of patterns, adding personality to clothing and making it seem even festive. Hylians are able to learn many different skills, and take on many different careers; skilled farmers, scholars, knights, guards, merchants, and more, have all come from the Hylian people. Hylian skin comes in many tones, their hair many colours, and their figures many shapes. Hylians worship the Three Goddesses and the Triforce, as the protectors of Hyrule, as well as Hylia, their patron Goddess.

[Roman]

T H E G E R U D O

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : G E R U D O D E S E R T _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : T H E S A G E O F S P I R I T | T H E T R I F O R C E _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E G E R U D O E M P R E S S ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Gerudo are a proud, all-female tribe of desert-dwelling Hylians, residing deep in the Gerudo Desert in Gerudo Valley, the path to which is near-untraceable to outsiders. The tribe was begun many years ago by a clan of thieves who were banished from Hyrule proper into the desert as punishment for their crimes. The clan found the valley, and over the years, the Gerudo grew into their own community, building fortresses from stone. The Gerudo are trained in combat from a young age, their skills brought up to standard until each member chooses her personal weapon - whether it be a simple sword, a vicious spear, or something more exotic. Gerudo are also taught in the way of the thief, learning how to move quietly and unseen. Gerudo are also natural survivors, as it necessary living in the desert. Male Gerudo are rare, and the few that are born are not trained in the traditional Gerudo way of combat and thievery. Many are cast out into the desert to prove their value to the tribe, and few come back. Gerudo are proud, and honourable to their own clan, although their reputation outside of the Valley is not one held in high esteem. Gerudo generally have dark skin, and red hair.

[Roman]

T H E S H E I K A H

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : W I N D F A L L V I L L A G E | W A T C H T O W E R O F S T E E L _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : T H E S A G E O F S H A D O W | T H E T R I F O R C E _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E R O Y A L F A M I L Y | T H E S H E I K A H M A S T E R S ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Sheikah are a tribe of Hylians that reside in Windfall Village. An ancient clan, tied to the Hylian Royal Family, a select few are chosen to train in the Watchtower of Steel to become Sheikah Warriors, ninja-like soldiers and assassins devoted to the protection of Hyrule's Royal Family - this oath lingers even beyond death. Sheikah are naturally attuned to magic, and even the most mundane, non-practiced Sheikah Tribe member can perform basic spells. More trained warriors can cloak themselves, silence their movements, blind their enemies, and teleport great distances with their magical abilities. Trained Sheikah Warriors are also formidable foes, but they prefer to avoid confrontation, instead taking other methods. They are practiced in a variety of weapons, including swords, bows, and throwing knives. Sheikah warriors are scarce in these times, with only one or two trainers remaining alive, and even they are old and nearing their end. The Sheikah Warrior way is threatening to die out, and this sad fact is not helped by the trainer's stubbornness in their strict standards for potential trainees. However, there are a few potentials that have been chosen from the current generation of Sheikah. Sheikah generally have pale or even gray skin, with fair hair ranging from white to golden-blonde, and their facial features are usually androgynous. All Sheikah have red eyes - it is the surest sign of a Sheikah's lineage. Sheikah are patient, logical, and soft-spoken, often choosing to speak only when they have something of value to say - although there are some that prefers action over words.

[Roman]

T H E K O K I R I

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : K O K I R I F O R E S T | T H E L O S T W O O D S _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : G R E A T Q U E E N O F T H E F A I R I E S | T H E G R E A T D E K U T R E E | T H E S A G E O F F O R E S T _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E G R E A T D E K U T R E E ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Kokiri are a forest race of children, residing deep within the Kokiri Forest and Lost Woods, watched over by the Great Deku Tree, Guardian of the Forest. Given their ageless nature, it is often thought that Kokiri are spirits of the forest, given true life by the Great Deku Tree, or Hylian children that wandered too far into the Lost Woods and were transformed by the powers of the region, or even fairies that were given corporeal form. Whether any of these theories are true is unknown; however, it is true that each Kokiri has their own guardian fairy companion, and that a Kokiri that left the forest would perish quickly. Kokiri are a peaceful, innocent race, never aging beyond pre-pubescence, but remaining alive for unknown years of time. They are a cautious race, keeping secrets from outsiders and shunning those that would integrate themselves into their world without seeking audience and approval from the Great Deku Tree first. They are also innately mischievous in a way only children can accomplish, playing tricks and pranks that are, more often than not, harmless - but some jokes that can, through child-like naivety, bring more malicious results upon the victim's head. Many Kokiri are musical, and all of them are whimsical.

[Roman]

T H E T W I L I

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : T H E T W I L I G H T R E A L M _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : T H E T R I F O R C E _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E T W I L I G H T Q U E E N ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Twili are an enigmatic race of magical beings that exist through the Twilight Mirror in the Twilight Realm, a half-shadowed world that their tribe was banished to long ago, and that they have since made their home. The Twili are peaceful, though this is largely irrelevant to Hyrule and those that live there; the Twilight Mirror is shattered into pieces that cannot be recovered, and with it, so to is the only door between Hyrule and the Twilight Realm. Long ago, a tribe of sorcerers known as the Interlopers attempted to use their magic to rule the Sacred Realm and take the Triforce for themselves. Displeased with them, the Three Goddesses banished them to the Twilight Realm, where, over millenia, they slowly evolved, abandoning their original desires and adapting to life in their new home, though holding on to their natural aptitude for magic. Twili are humanoid, but strange caricatures of Hylians, with featureless, black-and-white skin, strange runic markings, stretched forms and limbs and elongated necks. They are also intelligent, with a cultured society and technology surpassing that of Hyrule. Sadly, while previously the Twili used the Twilight Mirror to visit Hyrule, the invasion of Zant against Hyrule resulted in a second shattering of the mirror, pulling all Twili back to their realm, and cutting off all travel between the two kingdoms.

[Roman]

T H E Z O R A

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : Z O R A ' S D O M A I N _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : J A B U N , G U A R D I A N O F T H E O C E A N S | T H E S A G E O F W A T E R _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E Z O R A R O Y A L T Y ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Zora are an aquatic, amphibious race of fish-people that reside mainly in Zora's Domain, but due to their amphibious nature, may be found anywhere in Hyrule - particularly near bodies of water. Naturally, the Zora biology makes them incredible swimmers, agile and fast in the water, able to swim through currents, waves, and the coldest of both salt and fresh waters. This swimming ability is aided by the Zora's biology, which includes dorsal fins on the rear of their heads, ulna fins on their arms, and webbed feet and hands, as well as gills. Most Zora do not wear clothes, as they have little sense of embarrassment or modesty about their bodies like Hylians, certainly helped by their lack of visible external genitalia - although they do take to donning certain affectations depending on their standing. Zora guards wear elaborate ceremonial armour, while the royal and high-class Zora tend to wear jewelry. Zora that have tried to integrate themselves with Hylian culture more fully tend to wear rough, basic clothes in order to avoid making Hylians feel uncomfortable, although all Zora forgo shoes. Zoras worship Jabun, the Guardian of the Sea, as their patron deity. Many hope to one day swim in his waters.

[Roman]

T H E G O R O N S

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : G O R O N I A | D E A T H M O U N T A I N _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : T H E F O U R G I A N T S , G U A R D I A N S O F T H E L A N D | T H E S A G E O F F I R E _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E G O R O N C H I E F ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Gerudo are a proud, all-female tribe of desert-dwelling Hylians, residing deep in the Gerudo Desert in Gerudo Valley, the path to which is near-untraceable to outsiders. The tribe was begun many years ago by a clan of thieves who were banished from Hyrule proper into the desert as punishment for their crimes. The clan found the valley, and over the years, the Gerudo grew into their own community, building fortresses from stone. The Gerudo are trained in combat from a young age, their skills brought up to standard until each member chooses her personal weapon - whether it be a simple sword, a vicious spear, or something more exotic. Gerudo are also taught in the way of the thief, learning how to move quietly and unseen. Gerudo are also natural survivors, as it necessary living in the desert. Male Gerudo are rare, and the few that are born are not trained in the traditional Gerudo way of combat and thievery. Many are cast out into the desert to prove their value to the tribe, and few come back. Gerudo are proud, and honourable to their own clan, although their reputation outside of the Valley is not one held in high esteem. Gerudo generally have dark skin, and red hair.

[Roman]

T H E R I T O

_______________________________________________ T E R R I T O R Y : S N O W P E A K M O U N T A I N _______________________________________________ D E I T Y : V A L O O , G U A R D I A N O F T H E S K Y _______________________________________________ L O Y A L T I E S : T H E R I T O C H I E F T A I N ___________________________________

SUMMARY ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The Rito are a nimble race of bird-people, dwelling mainly on the tops of Snowpeak Mountain, doing well in the cold thanks to their thick feathers, but due to their innate ability to fly, they can be often found across Hyrule - many Rito are couriers or scouts, able to take the shortest paths between their departure and their destination. Rito are not natural warriors, nor are they great in physical strength, due to their hollow bones, but they are quick, and their sharp beaks and claws can cause rapid harm. Rito children cannot fly, as their wings have not fully developed, but beyond 7 or 8 years of age until around 19 or 20, they are able to use their fledgling wings to glide. Rito worship Valoo, the Guardian of the Sky, as their patron deity, and many take pilgrimages to the Wind Temple where he can occasionally be found, hoping to gain his favour and one of his scales that are said to possess magic that will let them control the winds for perfect flight. The Rito are often wise, patient, and fair, although they are also prone to bouts of pettiness, flurried thoughts, and itching wanderlust.

[Roman]

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

T H E B A T M A N

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^{_{B R U C E W A Y N E ♦ V I G I L A N T E / P H I L A N T H R O P I S T ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ G O T H A M}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

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^{"Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot."}

Bruce Wayne was born to two loving parents on a cold night in September, 1988. Bruce Wayne died beside his parents on a cold night in November, 1996. He was eight. He was never mourned.

The child is dead; what remains is a paracausal being of zealotry, rage, and willpower. This unnatural creature spends twelve years inhabiting the body of Bruce Wayne, seizing every new day as a fresh opportunity to push itself towards some as-yet-unknown goal. Alfred, the guardian, secretly fears this changeling child, in his worst moments pining for the bubbling, gleeful boy that left the manor with his parents that fateful November night, and never returned. At twenty-one years old, the skin-walker leaves Gotham, and Alfred allows some dark corner of himself to believe that the City has been spared an unknowable evil.

Gotham festered for three years. Corruption and crime, previously a slowly-growing problem, somehow rapidly became the new normal, infesting every corner of Gotham's infrastructure. The mayor, the police, the judges - all are mere tokens, figureheads to placate the public; the Gotham crime families - Falcone, Maroni, Gilzean, Cobblepot - are the new authority. Not a decision is made without their knowledge or involvement. The city loses hope, and with it, the citizens feel a light leave their lives.

On the sixteenth anniversary of his parent’s brutal, senseless murder, the prodigal Wayne son returns to his city, anger tamed and zealotry focused, and he brings with him a singular purpose: to rid his beloved Gotham of the corruption that threatens to swallow it whole. He dons a mantle of fear, and begins a war.

Bruce is now thirty-two; he has spent eight years pushing back the wave of filth that once washed through his home. His mind and body at the very brink of human potential, he has become a ruthless and effective weapon against those that would prey on the weak, and he has turned fear against the monsters that seek to inflict it upon the innocent. But the nature of the world is changing, and with it, the nature of evil; Gotham is plagued less by corruption and greed, and instead is ever-increasingly victim to sadism, megalomania, and terrorism. The war has never ceased, but it has shifted, and Bruce has amassed allies over the course of his long campaign. Now more than ever, he needs those allies: the face of his city is about to shift again.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

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I’ve always loved Batman. I may not be as overt about it as others, but Batman, alongside Spider-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog, laid the foundation of my early youth, and to this day remains a core passion; it’s one of those things that gets in early, and immerses you completely, and then as you grow older and more aloof maybe you don’t shout it from the rooftops, but you still love the character and the story. Sure, as you grow up you encounter more and more stories and properties and you broaden your taste - hell, you learn what your taste is - and you start a growing list of franchises you hold in esteem; but that foundation is still there, those core characters that you latched onto inexplicably as a child, and undoubtedly will carry with you to the grave. Spider-Man. Sonic the Hedgehog. Batman.

My Batman here is nothing special, no wild reinvention or AU interpretation. He’s Bruce Wayne, and we all know Bruce Wayne’s story. At 32, he’s 8 years into his career: several of his protégés have already trained under him, become disillusioned, and left to pursue their own missions. The organised crime families of Gotham have been mostly disassembled, with the family heads still evading the law and attempting to claw back some of the empire they have had torn away from under them. Most of his Rogues Gallery are established, with a few exceptions, and have changed the face of Gotham forever.

I’m not looking to portray any revolutionary introspection of Bruce himself; what I am interested in is using Batman as a vehicle to explore his Rogues Gallery and the relationship each individual villain shares with Bruce. Batman’s enemies define him more so than any other hero, and these are the characters and dynamics that drew me to Batman in the first place; through them, a Batman that will be recognisably Mine will be carved out, and a new entry into the Mythos we all share and adore will be born.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

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//SUPPORTING CAST:

▼ ALLIES

◼ DICK GRAYSON | Ex-Robin. Current Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
◼ JAMES 'JIM' GORDON | GCPD Commissioner
◼ HARVEY BULLOCK | GCPD's most senior Detective
◼ ALFRED PENNYWORTH | Wayne Manor Housekeeper. Appointed legal guardian to Bruce Wayne
◼ HARVEY DENT | Gotham City District Attorney

S A M P L E P O S T:

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Set the scene.

Gotham docks. Off-stage, yet his presence felt: ‘The Penguin’. Deposed heir to the Cobblepot crime family; now destitute, he grows desperate and ruthless in pursuit of the empire he’s lost.
The empire I have ripped away from him.

Tonight he brings drugs into my city, balaclava-clad men hauling wooden crates off of shipping containers and loading them into trucks. The cargo and containers are unmarked, but I have already seen the shipping manifesto; these crates may have come from overseas, but their purchase has been made through holding companies and shell corps that one can, when looking in the right places, trace back to a property development and construction contracting company based in New York City.
Fisk is attempting to purchase a stake of Gotham using Cobblepot as a figurehead. They will both be disappointed.

From my vantage point I can see eleven men.
Three loading crates; they are strong, but fatigued, and the hard work on a humid night has aggravated them; they demand help from the others, but are ignored. Tempers flare.
One in the truck cab; he is overweight and chain-smoking. His windows are closed and the stereo is loud.
Four dock workers, all paid off. Whether by Cobblepot or Fisk doesn't matter; what does is three of them are concealing light firearms, judging by their uneven gaits. The other is young and nervous, and wraps his hand around a single set of brass knuckles in his jacket pocket.
Two security guards, once again paid off. One guards the entrance to this pier - he's jumpy, and carries his hands together, awkwardly low and in front of him: he is holding what is likely to be a shotgun. The other is casually patrolling; he is openly carrying a pistol, with a heavy torch in the other hand. The patrolling guard is not jumpy, and he grips his pistol loosely. Carelessly.
The last man is the lookout; he is stationed atop the gantry crane assigned to this pier. He is holding an automatic rifle and has binoculars, an open-broadcast two-way radio, and has even been equipped with night-vision goggles, because he is here to look for me, and I operate from the dark.

He will not find me. I am above him. I was on this gantry crane first.

I begin tonight's work.

-

'Eyes' is a dumb nickname, Eyes thinks, but these are dumb men and it is simple and effective and makes his role in the operation clear. They are obviously expecting interference tonight - but that is why he is here. His radio crackles - the voice coming through is filled with static, and is loud and grating. Ten minute check-in.
"[WALKER TO EYES. CHECK IN]"
"Eyes to Walker. Eyes clear."
"[WALKER TO EYES. OARLESS CANOE.]"
"Eyes to Walker. Western Fjord."
The radio crackles again and falls silent. Check-in clear. Eyes thinks he'll take another walk around the crane; the lights of Gotham's business district over the dock-water on a clear night is oddly beautiful. There's a good view of Wayne Tower too, the imposing skyscraper with its iconic 'W' fascia nestled among bank and media logos. He can lean over the railing and gaze out over the pier for five minutes, then walk back around for the next check.

Eyes barely has time to register what little noise comes from behind him before his forehead hits the metal railing and he bounces back, reeling - but not before his leg is kicked into the lower set of railings and his kneecap shatters. He would scream in pain, but as he twists around in his fall, the jagged, black shape that towers above him lashes out with one of its uncountable limbs and strikes him across the throat, silencing him as he sinks to the floor. Eyes' has one last sight before he fades out; terrible, inhuman horns, sitting atop a snarling black face, blasphemously haloed by demonic wings.

-

I have nine minutes and forty seconds before the lookout fails to report at the next check-in and the men are alerted to my arrival. The guard at the entrance to the pier is sequestered in his booth, too far from the operation to be useful; the driver is not the fighting type. That leaves me a little over a minute to incapacitate each man.
Doable.
I leap from the crane, gliding softly towards the patrolman who has entered the furthest section of his route.

-

Walker’s name is actually Walker, although he hasn’t let anyone know - to do so would be to defy the point of the codenames in the first place. William Walker. William after his father; he knows that much of the man, but little else. He spent much of his youth fighting ‘Willy Junior’ as a nickname, but eventually, gracefully, Bill stuck. Bill’s trying to be a better dad to his kid than William Senior was - not hard, as Bill’s mere existence in his son’s life is a step above the standard the old man set.

Bill’s a security guard at the docks, has been for 4 years. He knew what kind of world he was stepping into when he took the job - record turnovers, Gotham Docks, for all manner of reasons both sinister and benign - but there was little else in his skill set he was suitable for, and the job paid well for what it demanded of him. Tonight was the first time he’d been involved in anything explicitly illicit. The first time he’d been actively involved, at least, approached by a man in a suit with a roll of bills that totalled 3 months wage. 3 months wage for one night protecting whatever was coming off those containers - cargo that would have been coming in anyway, Bill thought, cargo that’s probably come in unawares on many of his shifts over his career. A quarter-year of pay for one night’s overtime. He could pay off his son’s braces with some left over for a real knock-out birthday present with what he was earning tonight. He felt good. A little dirty, but good.

There was a noise in the shadows to his left and Bill snapped out of his ruminations and whipped around, torch held out first and his pistol low and close to his body. He’d not fired a gun once in his four years on the docks, and didn’t even own the one he was holding now.
“W-Who’s there? Show yourself!”

There was another sound, behind him. He whipped around again, swearing under his breath and shaking a little. Still nothing. He took a few steps forward.

A quiet, sharp little noise rushed through the air towards him and something pierced his hand, forcing him to drop the pistol. It clattered to the ground, but Bill paid no attention; even before he’d yelled out in shock, there had been another small noise and a gummy, viscous substance had splashed across his mouth and nose, muffling his shout and blocking his air. He slowly sunk to the ground, losing consciousness, back against a shipping container as his legs gave way beneath him.

Ten feet away, across the path, the shadows shift and split and some cursed figure melts into reality; Bill can recognise a head connected to shoulders, but the rest of the body is an inhuman mass that bleeds into the floor, no limbs or torso or recognisably human features to speak of.

Consciousness fades. The darkness descends. The figure envelopes him; and then Bill cannot keep his eyes open any longer.

-

The patrolman had been at odds with the job since the night began; I’d checked his record, and for a docks guard, it was as clean as they came. A little history, to be expected. But this was his first time being bought. He’d taken to it all too easily. They all do.

I lean over him and lightly wave a small bottle of solvent beneath his nose; the glue blocking his nostrils melts away, and I hear him subconsciously take a full breath, but he doesn’t wake up. He won’t for at least half-an-hour; the glue includes chloroform in its makeup to sedate the victim. I bind his hands behind his back, retrieving the batarang, and then head inwards towards the truck.

There are seven men left: the three loaders, and the four dock workers. The loaders are unarmed, but the workers aren’t, and the three with concealed pistols need to be tackled first. They’re mostly milling around, but one wanders away to urinate. I take him out first; emerging from the dark like a beast of the nine circles, enveloping him in terror’s embrace and smothering him until he stops struggling. I set him down and bind his hands, too, and then I take the pistol from the belt of his trousers. Well made. American. Probably Fisk again; Oswald’s no arms dealer, and doesn’t have the underworld clout to source firearms like these. I disassemble it easily enough, regardless of its manufacturer.

The pieces go clattering around the corner towards the remaining men; everyone ceases their tasks to watch as the sections of pistol slide in their direction from where their comrade had rounded the corner mere seconds ago. They all freeze; every single man on the pier tonight now knows their operation has ended, but none want to say it aloud. Instead, the two workers wielding pistols draw them and hold them tight and outstretched, and then heckle the worker with the dusters to investigate. He protests, meekly, then does what is demanded of him, slipping the brass knuckles over his fist as he approaches my corner.

He rounds it and see his colleague unconscious. He does not see me. I reach out and seize his wrist, bringing my elbow down across the top of his forearm, breaking his elbow sharply; he screams and I let him. I want them to hear his pain. I want them to fear the pain they are about to feel. I slip the dusters off his fingers as he whimpers, cradling his broken arm, and then deliver them to the side of his face; he slumps over, out cold, gums bleeding. I toss the dusters towards the remaining men too; now I hear them shouting. The shake and inflection in their voices indicates panic.

Five left. Two armed. Terror beginning to strangle their minds and cloud their judgement. Time to end things.

I launch a smoke capsule at the ground in front of me; gas explodes forth and lays down cover; I step into the fog, unseen, and then carefully approach the outer edge of the cloud, allowing the men to barely glimpse my form; I hear one shout and know I've been spotted, and immediately back away, invisible again, before dropping prone to the ground. Shots puncture the gas as bullets whip past above me. The two with pistols are aiming torso-level. They both miss; then they pause to reload. I stand and step forward again, in one smooth motion parting my cloak and flinging two batarangs out; they both find their marks, cutting across the hands of the workers as they're scrambling to load a second clip. Both pistols are dropped, and the men let their fear get the better of them. They turn and run. I throw out my other arm; bolos fly forth and ensnare their ankles. they hit the ground head-first and hard.

Three left. I step out of the smoke completely, letting my cloak cover me again. They stare; I wait. I let the tension build.

Finally, one snaps and charges me; he throws a wide fist, too much wind up, too slow to connect; I sidestep and jab the wrist, breaking it easily, and then drive my other arm into his ribs; he folds around my fist, winded, and a follow up to his kidney has him wheezing and stumbling. I spin and bring my leg around; my greaves connect with his ear and he goes flying.

Two left. They rush me at the same time.

-

Larry McCoy has driven nearly anything that’s been built with a wheel and two pedals. Never drove stick, but never needed to; never had a licence neither, but never needed one. With an auto all you needed was a foot for ‘go’, a foot for ‘stop’, and hand for ‘where’. Larry had all those, and he made do just swell. Tractors early on - ploughing fields and harvesting crops. Taxi for a while, tried buses too, although eventually he pined for the quiet solitude he’d enjoyed in the cab of heavy farming machinery; he’d long left corn behind him, but found long-haul lorry driving suited him just fine. There was something comforting about a long road in front of him and a radio that was just a fraction static, where the only things that existed were Larry, the cargo he was hauling, and the journey that took from where he came from and where he was going.

That’s why he hated nights and jobs like these; no mystique, no romance, no subtle beauty. Here, the ugliness was laid bare, and he had to dip his hands deep into the muck. After jobs like these, Larry didn’t feel clean for days. But Larry’s wife had cancer, and hospital bills don’t pay themselves. So he played the music loud and stayed in the cab. That was his condition; he’d drive, and he’d drive whatever they wanted, and he’d do it better and sometimes cheaper than most. But he stayed in the cab.

So when Larry saw The Batman, a creature he believed was just Gotham urban legend - fuck, to Larry, the Batman may as well have been the Jersey Devil - appear out of darkness and smog, having done some unseen, unspeakable horror to at least three men, more likely eight, and then proceed to effortlessly incapacitate three more, seemingly untouchable, ethereal, intangible...

Larry got out the cab and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

-

The driver ran. I’d anticipated it; he didn’t have the look of a fighter. By the time he reached the guard booth at the entrance to the pier and pointed frantically down the way towards me, I’d already set the charges on the crates; as the last guard sprinted towards me, I melted back into the shadows of the docks, and triggered the explosives.

By the time the guard picked himself up off the floor, Fisk and Penguin’s budding enterprise was cinders, and I was gone; another story of the night.

The evening was yet young. There was much work to be done.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

TBC.

[Roman]

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

^{_{E V E C O F F I N ♦ W I T C H ♦ C O F F I N H I L L ♦ B L A C K M A G I C}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

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^{”Some debts can never be repaid.”}

The Coffins, founders and original settlers of Coffin Hill, are an old family with their roots in Salem and their hands dipped in blood and muck. They have a history of power, wealth, and terrible secrets. Eve Coffin is the last living branch of her ancestral tree - and she is determined to let it end with her.

In 2009, at fifteen years old, Eve and her closest friends delved deep into the woods of Coffin Hill; they went in search of the fabled witch, seeking to strike a bargain. What Eve had failed to understand was that she was the Witch of Coffin Hill; in those woods lived only the creature that lived in servitude to the Coffin family, the source of their power and status. All they had accomplished with their ritual was untethering it from her bloodline.
Four girls had walked into that dark forest that day. Only Eve walked out, and she had been forever marked by what had transpired within the cradle of those trees.
She fled from Coffin Hill that night. Neither the town nor her parents would miss her.

Ten years later, she returns, discovering that the creature in the woods had hungered in her time away; that hunger and rot had spread to the town beyond the treeline. People had been going missing, nearly always reported near or travelling in the direction of the woods by those who’d seen them last. Only Eve knew the true culprit responsible for the horror that now befell the town more frequently than ever before. A decade to the day, she went back into those woods, ready to do battle.

She emerged three days later, not saying a word; her collected her things and left Coffin Hill forever, taking the curse of her family with her.

It’s been a year since she returned to those woods. Eve drifts now, haunted wherever she goes, too scared to stop moving in case she brings ruin and misery to stay with her. She is The Coffin Witch, the last one there will ever be, and she spends everyday repenting for the sins of her forebearers, carrying the burden of her family name with her.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

Eve's motivations are fairly straight-forward, even if the work involved isn't; use the witchcraft of her family to undo the damage her family has done, and protect the innocent from the malevolent beings of the occult world, and then eventually die alone with no children or legacy and let her family's sins die with her. She drifts from town to town, city to city, and does what she can to fight back against the ever-encroaching darkness as she travels.

My own goals are to use a new character that we haven't seen before in these games to write supernatural/occult mystery and drama stories. I read Coffin Hill a couple years ago, a friend's copy rather than one I picked up myself, and I liked the character of Eve and the horror-occult leanings of the story. As she travels she'll also be very open to crossover stories and community events, something I usually avoid in the endless iterations we churn through, and something that I feel might re-light the spark. If I want to write solo stories, I could just work away on googledocs; if I'm writing as part of a greater collaborative, then I should get involved. So let's get involved.

S A M P L E P O S T:

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Coffin House was never Eve's home; merely the building she occupied - hesitantly, reluctantly. It had never felt cozy, inviting, or welcoming. It had never felt safe. Even when her parents were absent, and the air was lacking any ambient cruelty or emotional negligence, the sense of being unwanted pervaded every fibre of Eve's being. The House itself did not want Eve residing within; the feeling was mutual. Eve did little to alter the sense of being rejected by the very brick and mortar. Coffin House was built on bloody foundations, and blood only beget more blood. She stared up at the great oak doors to the manor for the final time, then slung her single bag over her shoulder and spat at the ground, a great glob of spit landing smack on the first step. There was an imperceptible shudder in the brickwork, and a large chunk of moss and mud and dead bugs loosed itself from the guttering and landed at Eve's feet.
That was that, then. Farewells made. Eve turned, and resisted the urge to look back. The House watched her go for as far as it could manage.

The rest of the town felt no less hostile, but not because of malevolent architecture: this was a far more mundane form of malice. No one in Coffin Hill had forgotten August 13th, 2009, the night Eve had taken 3 young girls into the Woods and never returned them. She had been a pariah ever since; branded a murderer, it was only the fear of retribution from the Coffin elders that saved Eve from vigilantism, or even lynching, in the few weeks that followed. After that, they couldn't reach her from outside the institution anyway. Now, though, as she walked down the main street of Coffin Hill towards the bus ranks, she felt eyes on her from every window, every corner, every car. She lowered her head and fixed her gaze on the cobbles, not daring to make eye contact with a single person. Had any of them even a fraction of the Coffin witchcraft, these hard stares would be enough to entomb her in the stone beneath her feet. As it was, the air was unnaturally cold, and she felt a baleful darkness nipping at her heels. She hastened along.

-

As the coach pulled away from the stand, Eve stole a final glance at Coffin Hill out the back window. To the far west, she saw the House standing atop the eponymous knoll, some inimical arbiter of the town; behind Coffin House itself, she could barely make out the treeline of the woods. The trees and the things that dwelled in them looked back.

Eve watched until the town faded away into the fog, then turned and nestled down in her seat. She could still feel it on the back of her neck, but when they crossed the county line, there was a snap sensation in the back of her mind, and she knew then that Coffin Hill was gone. She settled into a restless sleep, and dreamt unquietly of a town that never-was.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

TBC.

[Roman]

_{PREVIOUSLY...}

THE COFFIN WITCH

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_{TWELVE FOR A DASTARDLY CURSE}

POST NAME

[Roman]

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

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^{_{T A S K M A S T E R ♦ C A P T A I N B O O M E R A N G ♦ M Y S T E R I O
K I N G S H A R K ♦ T Y P H O I D M A R Y ♦ O N O M A T O P O E I A}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

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^{"So that’s it then? We some kind of...Suicide Squad?"}

TASKMASTER, A.K.A. Anthony Masters. Ex-SHIELD agent, proto-type attempt at replicating Cap's super-soldier serum. Now 'Captain' of the Squad; on a short leash, as he has been deemed 'untrustworthy' by Fury due to his mimicry erasing previous memories. Waller believes she can still direct him by feeding him new auto-narratives, but as he continues to lose memories his personality gets worn away and it's harder for him to hold on to the mission.

CAPTAIN BOOMERANG, A.K.A. George ‘Digger’ Harkness. An Australian asshole who was, in a previous life, a member of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, before a mission went FUBAR and his team got scrubbed. He faked his death, smuggled himself out of the country, and used his skills to become a freelance mercenary and heist criminal, no longer affiliated with any nation or any morals, motivated only by money. His crimes were eventually thwarted by The Flash and he was incarcerated; however, Waller advocated for his inclusion in the Squad due to his past experience on tactical assignments and his unquestionable combat skills.

MYSTERIO, A.K.A. Quentin Beck. Former stage magician and practical effects artist, he felt his talent was overshadowed by the rising tide of metahumans and alien beings; believing he could make a fortune selling his hologram tech, he constructed the heroic persona of 'Mysterio', using his talent and technology to contrive illusory villains for him to best - however, his trickery was discovered and exposed by Spider-Man, and Beck vowed revenge - revenge he would seek as part of the Sinister Six. Beaten again and handed over to SHIELD, Beck stewed in incarceration until Waller offered him a place on the Squad, hoping to put his engineering genius and team-based experience to better use.

KING SHARK, A.K.A. Nanuae. A powerful hybrid being from deep in the ocean, who claims to be a reincarnation of his father, the God of the Deep, Devourer of the Sea. He clashed with Aquaman, believing his heritage afforded him a better claim to the oceanic throne. After destroying a large section of Atlantis, undersea forces were mobilized against King Shark as his destructive influence was recognized as a threat to all denizens of the water. Expelled from the ocean, weakened by the lack of water, he remained in maximum security care of SHIELD, until Amanda Waller campaigned for his inclusion in the Squad based on his formidable physical capabilities and easy manipulation through ocean access.

TYPHOID MARY, A.K.A Mary Walker. A bizarre, yet highly effective, mutant assassin-for-hire, she is afflicted by Dissociative Identity Disorder and is in fact three women residing within one head: ‘Innocent Mary’, a pacifist woman, with no powers but an excellent strategic mind and a well-practiced charm; ‘Typhoid Mary’, a more chaotic and care-free woman who possesses enhanced strength, reflexes, and low-level psionic abilities; and ‘Bloody Mary’, a psychotic and destructive woman, who possesses powerful tele- and pyrokinesis. Hired by Kingpin to kill Daredevil, the Innocent persona fell in love with Matthew Murdock; when she realized her lover and her target were one and the same, she had to work together with the Typhoid persona to prevent Bloody Mary from killing him - and once Bloody Mary was secure, she handed herself in. She is the only willing member of the Squad, offered the position by Waller due to the formidable combination of her Typhoid and Innocent personas, and in return promised help to find a method to keep Bloody Mary trapped permanently.

ONOMATOPOEIA. No other known identity. SHIELD holds no information about this mysterious serial killer who seems to exclusively target vigilantes, particularly those early in their career. Since his capture he has resisted all attempts to be unmasked, and yet has made no attempt to escape his incarceration, sitting in complete silence in his cell. He appears to have the ability to perfectly mimic any sound he has heard, although it is unknown whether this is a mutant power or simply a well-practiced skill, and it is unknown if this extends to speech, as he has never spoken either before or during his capture. Amanda Waller has cautiously advocated for his inclusion in the Squad due to his undeniable combat ability and his exceptional talent for espionage and infiltration.

TASK FORCE X. Brain child of Amanda Waller and only just-barely approved by Nick Fury; a task force of criminal candidates captured by SHIELD and hand-picked by Waller, chosen for their combined tactical efficiency, combat efficacy, and extreme disposability. They are a deep black squad with ethically ambiguous assignments and the ultimate cover story in the event of mission failure, and their status as federal enemies allows their assignments to achieve things outside the usual legal and moral restrictions that hamstring more public figures. They are the Suicide Squad, their members coerced into service, and they’re here to thrust their hands into the muck to protect society’s greater good.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

If there’s one thing that bugs me about myself when I write it’s that I’m always so damn serious all the time - even my OC stuff (See: Blighted Kingdom/LoZ:Lost Knight) is so grounded and stern in tone that it doesn’t lend itself well to humour (my last TBK game actually struggled to survive amidst the current world predicament because it itself is so bleak and hopeless). Yes I’m naturally drawn to serious dark stories about monsters and psychological horror but hell, I still have the capacity to get silly every now and again. Speedracer is one of my favourite movies of all time, for gods sake. Add a bit of levity to your repertoire, man!

So this is my attempt at that. Suicide Squad has always been (in my eyes) a black comedy property, and with such a mishmash of inherently dick-ish characters there’s a lot of humour to be had in wanton recklessness and team dysfunction. I can trail after the destruction lead by our main heroes, clash with them at times to, and in general just pursue government-sanctioned black-ops mayhem in the name of feeling a bit more ‘comic-book-y’ in this game about comic books.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

The Squad members were carefully picked for both their interesting characters, and their abilities to fill specific niches within the team:

Taskmaster - The Leader, also the most serious and grounded of the group, a straight-man amidst the buffoonery and silliness of the rest of the squad.

Boomerang - The Lancer, the wise-cracker, the love-to-hate, most at-odds with the leader. Also the token asshole.

Mysterio - The Smart Guy, the gadgeteer, the hacker, also the one with something to prove and most likely to work against the squad in the inevitable betrayal arc.

King Shark - The Big Guy, the Muscle, the Heavyweight. Also the Quiet One, and a good outside-perspective due to his oceanic origins being so alien to the rest of the land-dwelling squad.

Mary - The Face, the Smooth Talker, the one with charisma. Also the cheery, optimistic one, comic relief of a different kind to Boomerang's general dickhead nature, and inevitably the token woman.

Onomatopeia - The Weirdo. Also the spy, the cold killer, the emotionless, the inscrutable one. The one that gives the others, even despite their own personal brands of nastiness, the creeps.

And of course, Waller - The Voice with an Internet Connection, and the taskforce leader, the assignment-giver, the ball-buster.

S A M P L E P O S T:

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A sample post that can be used in the IC if you so desire upon acceptance. This post should provide an example of your vision for the desired character. This sample post should meet all standards outline in the rules and additionally include dialogue, mannerisms and other actions representative of your intended portrayal.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

[Roman]

Vitae: A deep-space research facility orbiting a black hole at the edge of the galaxy, and mankind's most distant and isolated outpost. A mixture of scientific, military, and civilian staff - the latter mostly the families of the former two, but also a more generalized workforce for the basic day-to-day running of the station.

The station is primarily invested in the research and development of FTL-travel, using the naturally-occurring, but still puzzling, phenomena of the black hole to inspire/feed the research, and also expanding on humanity's already-existing use of [subspace], seemingly a separate dimension that mankind have begun to breach, and have been using for the past few decades to successfully send signals and communications across vast reaches of space near-instantaneously - the dream outcome of the Vitae facility is to develop the successful sending of objects, both organic and non-organic, through this [subspace] to further empower mankind's exploration of space and the universe, and enable humanity to find a new home-world in a conceivable, achievable time-frame before extinction by attrition.

Recently, the research staff on-board were successful in sending and retrieving an extremely simple, extremely small probe, however upon return the probe showed extreme damage of various kinds, including blunt force, corrosion, and both heat and cold damage, with minimal data recordings still usable. Additionally, based on previous research, existing knowledge about [subspace] transmission, and projections for the experiment, the probe took 26 times the originally estimated travel time to appear at its destination. Research into [subspace] travel is still ongoing, but the probe's success, despite the hitches, has inspired some hope in what was beginning to feel like a dead-end field.

Due to Vitae's extreme isolation and remote location, it regularly receives shuttles of rations, equipment, and maintenance supplies. These shuttles are the lifeblood of Vitae, as the station is unable to self-sustain, and collapse and evacuation would become inevitable without them. However, the facility has been struck by disaster; on approach, the latest supply shuttle went dark, and subsequently crashed into a section of the facility, doing considerable damage and accruing a number of casualties. An emergency shuttle is then dispatched, containing extra supplies, as well as a contingent taskforce of maintenance engineers, security personnel, and UN investigators, to help repair the damage, pacify or subdue the civilian unrest, and determine the cause of the crash.

[Roman]

Checklist:

1- Game Title
2- Premise (use for Int.Check too)
3- Setting

3a. Location - station map? system map?
3b. Factions & VIP
3c. History - Timeline?

4. Character sheet skeleton
5. Rules & FAQ

[Roman]

AN APPOINTMENT WITH APOTHEOSIS

---

---

Saṃsāra

Whether the individual accepts it or not, belief shapes his reality minute-to-minute. Belief in the self becomes the deciding factor when confronting challenges; belief in others forges the foundations of relationships; belief in the adversary becomes the face of our fears. The man who believes in the righteousness of his cause will slay the man who does not. So it has been since the dawn of humanity, and so it remains.

So grand, then, is the potential of belief, that it should be little surprise that it would gather unto itself a power unlike that of any other; that it became, early in Man's infancy, a force so potent that it would wield the gift of creation, pure and true. And so it was, that what were once stories and legends told in hushed tones to marvelling tribes, were born into the cosmos as Gods and Deities and mythical beings.

[Roman]

cowboys but silent hill

cowboys in hell?

cowboys but it's spooky, but not spooky in a quaint way, spooky in a nasty eldritch horrible roman-style way. not cowboys and vampires and werewolves - cowboys and old gods and corruption and horrific beasts and stuff

Cowboys returning from a job, not realising they’ve died and they’re in purgatory?

[Roman]

JONAH HEX

classic cowboy fish-out-of-timewater story

walks out of desert and into town, meets bar owner who agrees to shelter him in return for some favours
favours start with intimidating bar owner's ex husband who's gunning for ownership of bar (presumably so he can sell it)

Ex-Husband works on an oilfield in the nearby desert
Oilfield owner is great-great-grandson of Quentin Turnbull
He wants the deed of the bar, not for the bar, but for the LAND the bar is on - Quentin put his treasure there years and years ago after finally killing Jonah

[Roman]

The first thing Jonah Hex did upon his impromptu resurrection was die. In his first new moment of second-life, he gasped wildly in shock and fear and confusion, and in doing so inhaled a massive lungful of sand and water-starved dirt. He choked on it, alternating between swallowing it and breathing it and coughing it up, thrashing about in his apparently double-grave until he thrashed no longer and grew still.

The first thing Jonah Hex did upon his second return to the mortal fold was to keep his mouth closed and hold his breath. He pushed his arms upwards with great effort, clawing aside fistfuls of sand until he felt his hand meet air, and then he kicked and pushed and clawed and eventually shifted enough earth to begin sitting up; rivulets of sand fell from him as he lifted himself, streams running from the brim of his hat as he finally breached the surface and sat straight, his lower half still encompassed in sand. He allowed himself to breath, soaking in the taste of the dry desert air - salt of his own sweat, heat of the high sun - and then, surprise giving way to the perturbation of mystery, surveyed his surroundings.

Jonah took off his hat, fanning himself with the brim while he held a hand over his eyes to gaze out across the horizon. A tumbleweed drifted across his line of sight, as if cued off-screen. Jonah went "Hmmmm" suspiciously, then replaced his hat and set to work digging his legs out, scrabbling around in the dirt and kicked until he could stand, and stand he did, stepping a few feet forwards and turning to take a look at his supposed-to-be-final resting place. It was a shallow grave, even with the natural settling of sand and soil deposited by wind and the movement of critters, and looked to be crudely and hastily dug. Jonah coughed into his hand and came away with a small pile of sand in his palm. "Hmmmm" he went again, and dusted himself down from head to toe. He carefully checked himself over as he did so: clothes intact, if battered and frayed; boots still sturdy, with soles comfortably worn in down to the shape of the callouses beneath his toes; skin feeling springy and alive, and mostly un-tarnished. He raised a hand to touch his face, and his fingers brushed the familiar rough, unshapen scarring that marred its left half. He nodded to himself. His hands moved south, and he pulled the waist of his trousers forward and risked a glance downward. All intact. Jonah nodded again.

His search moved across his waistline and onto the familiar tough leather of his gun belt; his fingers carefully traced the edge of the leather towards the holster, faltering before brushing the cool metal of his revolver. Inwardly, Jonah breathed relief. Digging himself out of his own grave is one thing; being caught without his gun is another entirely. Some things are sacred, even if Jonah himself is apparently not. He closed a fist around the grip and lifted his revolver from his side, rediscovering the comfortable weight of it and how it felt in his hand. With a practiced movement he sharply shook the gun sideways to knock the chamber loose of the body, and checked within: fully loaded, though polluted with sand and dirt and dust. He shook the bullets loose into the palm of his other hand and blew down each chamber, clearing the worst of the loose debris, and then wiped each bullet clean before loading them back into the drum and giving the gun another sharp knock to re-chamber it. With some encouragement the drum span span freely, but Jonah knew his pistol would need a proper clean and oil before he could properly rely on it again.

Snakes and coyotes he could handle without it. Men were more complicated.