Player Name: Byrd Man
Alias: The Devil of Hell's Kitchen
Real Name: Matt Murdock
Moral Alignment: WTL
Affiliation: The Campisi Crime Family, The Crusaders MC, etc.
Character Origin & Backstory:Matt Murdock was born in the early 80's, son of Maggie Murdock and heavyweight boxer "Battlin'" Jack Murdock. Jack was an up and coming contender in the boxing scene with an outside chance at the title. He became enamored with the trappings of success, doing drugs and partying until late hours of the night. Maggie left Jack when Matt was three and never looked back. Matt's early impression of Maggie as a devoutly catholic woman who couldn't stand Jack's ways caused Matt to idolize his mother and condemn his father.
When Matt was eleven Jack had a shot for the heavyweight title of the world. The day before the fight mob figure Roscoe "The Fixer" Sweeney offered Jack a chance to take a dive. Strapped for cash and filled with the Fixer's promises, Jack took the dive in the sixth round and retired from boxing the next night. He soon opened up "Jack's Place" a tavern in Hell's Kitchen bought with Fixer's money to be used as a mob front. Matt saw his father's ties to organized crime figures tighten and began to hate the man. He ran away from home at the age of twelve and ended up an accident when a chemical truck nearly hit him and instead splashed toxic waste in his face.
The accident took his sight but it also gave him more. It heightened his other four senses to the point of superhuman and gave him a radar sense that negated any disabilities a lack of vision gave him. Jack felt guilt over driving his son away used his money to pay for anything the boy needed or wanted, including a tutor named Stick. The old blind man was hired to teach Matt to adjust to his blindness, but Stick taught him how to thrive. He recognized the hate and yearning in the boy, the passionate need to be better than his father. Stick channeled those feelings into training. He showed Matt how to live and operate in the world as if he were any other person, and he also taught Matt the secret skills of martial arts and Ninjutsu.
Matt went to Columbia University after high school to major in pre-law. The excuse he gave his father and the rest of the world was that he wanted to become a defense attorney. While it was true, it was also part of a much larger plan he had worked out with Stick. During Matt's time at college, Jack began to work more and more for the Fixer and his superiors. Sweeney was a made man in the Campisi Crime Family, New York's top mob family. Soon Jack's Place was a waystation for junkies and dealers buying and selling a new and improved form of heroin from Asia. A DEA snitch fingered Jack as a dealer and he was brought into custody. Jack agreed to roll on those above him, but before he could an unknown assassin dressed as a police officer slit his throat with a razor-edged playing card while Jack was in police custody.
Matt graduated from law school first in his class just six months after his father's murder. Angelo Campisi, head of the crime family Jack worked for, took pity on the young man and threw some low-level defense cases his way. After Matt got the defendants off, Campisi began to use his legal services more and more. Before long he relied on Matt's legal advice on nearly all matters both large and small. Matt was made an unofficial consigliere of the Campisi Crime Family. Word began to get around New York and Matt Murdock was hired by other gangsters to defend them. All the media outlets in the city say Matt Murdock is the dirtiest lawyer in New York, if not the country. They say he manipulates the law to get his guilty clients acquitted. That's what the media says. By day the most amoral man in New York learns all the dirty little secrets of the mob as their adviser. By night, he becomes the thing they fear the most.
He becomes the Devil.
Powers and Abilities:Matt is blind, but his other four senses have been augmented to superhuman levels. The senses work together to create a radar sense that makes up for his lack of vision. The heightened senses also makes him into a human lie detector, capable of reading anybody's pulse or any small micro changes in their biology when they lie. Stick's training also turned Matt into a master acrobat and martial artist skilled in the art of Ninjutsu. Matt also has one of the best legal minds in the country, an expert on the American justice system that makes him a competent and formidable trial lawyer and legal adviser. His intelligence and experience in criminal law has also led to Matt developing a keen detective mind.
Sample Story Arcs:Nolo Contendere - After accepting to take up the murder defense of a young man pro bono, Matt begins to discover his client is truly innocent despite his many claims that he is guilty. As Matt tries to get the case thrown out based on evidence, Daredevil looks into the young man's past and neighborhood and discovers a sinister conspiracy.
Casus Belli - A shaky alliance between the mob and the Crusaders MC is in tatters after a drug deal gone bad ends with dead men on both sides and a missing briefcase with a million dollars in it. While Matt Murdock tires to prevent a gang war between his clients, Daredevil tears up the city in search of the perpetrators of the attack and the missing money.
Hostis Humani Generis - A vigilante has come to the city, reigning down death and destruction to those in need of punishment. Among the killers targets is Matt Murdock, the city's number one criminal lawyer.
Rules: I didn't read the rules because I can't read.
Sample Post:Midtown Manhattan
9:45 AM"'If Justice personified is blind, then Injustice personified most certainly is. That personification is a blind man. This blind man sits by the phone day and night, waiting for the call from some of the city's most dangerous and corrupt individuals. He talks about the lofty ideals and notions of justice in the courtroom, but one look at the last name on his client's list -- Campisi, Manfredi, De La Rosa, Blackwood -- and you know that Matt Murdock's talk is just that.' It goes on and on like that for another two pages. Bunch of talk about the mistrial with De La Rosa, then the stuff about the Crusaders... and then a last saying you should be disbarred."
"So, usual Daily Bugle boilerplate," I said to Karen. "Remind me to sue them for libel when I get the chance."
"Yes, sir."
That paper has attacked me so much over the past year that I could barely notice Karen's pulse rise anymore when she reads their editorials. They're not the only place that likes to attack me. Papers, websites, TV stations, even other lawyers and politicians all have an anti-Murdock stance of some sort... at least, the politicians and media organizations not in the pockets of my clients.
"That's all, Karen, you can go."
Karen Page, a paralegal and my only staff member quickly and quietly left the room while I leaned back in my chair. Karen was the gatekeeper when it came to any time with me. I only worked by referral, my card nothing but a phone number. That phone number rang here to Karen's desk. From there she would do the Murdock test. Either you had enough cash to cover my fees, or your case was unique enough to grant me exposure. If you didn't have one of those two things, then Karen would refer to her rolodex full of other lawyers happy to take the case. If you did pass that test, then she passed you along to me and we would have a meeting either at my office or at whatever lockup you happened to find yourself in. Hopefully said meeting would be in my office, if only for the scenery.
My office is on the fortieth floor of an impressive Midtown skyscraper. They say it has one hell of a view of Lower Manhattan. Guess I'll take their word for it. Someone once asked why I paid so much for this corner office when I could have gotten another one on the same floor without a view for a hundred thousand dollars cheaper. I didn't dignify them with a response. In this business, what I do on the books and off of them, you show strength by your decisions. A blind man wasting a hundred grand on a view he'll never see is part of my strength. It's part of my power. I bought the office because I could.
Syosset, New York
6 PM"Matt, my boy," Don Campisi said cheerfully.
His old and withered hands felt like sandpaper scrapping against the skin of my hands. He patted the back of my hand and put the other hand on my elbow to guide me across the lawn. He thought of it as a favor, but I could get around the yard better than he could. I've never laid eyes on the man but I can describe the old mob boss perfectly. Short, squat, with wisps of white hair on his pale scalp. Large eyeglasses so thick his eyes look alien. To the world at large, Angelo Campisi looks like a doddering old grandfather. To think that's what he is would be to sorely underestimate the man.
"I'm so glad you made it out," he said once we were both sitting in lawn chairs. "I know it's a hell of a drive out of the city, especially for you."
"Well, I didn't hear any moaning under the car when I stopped, so I guess I did alright."
"If you hit 'em just right, you won't hear any moaning at all!"
Campisi laughed at his own joke before moving on to small talk. He had to tell me all about his kids that I didn't care about. I nodded at the right times and said the right things. One of Campisi's men came out and dropped off two impossibly strong coffees. Just the smell of it gave me the jitters. Campisi picked one up with shaking hands and took a long sip. After that he finally got down to it.
"I want you advice on something, Matty. You know Joey Bags? Works with that crew out in Red Hook? He and Paulie came to me a few nights ago with an idea on a score. Those fucking biker pricks you repped last year, what were they?"
"The Crusaders."
Officially, the Crusaders Motorcycle Club is simply a group of motorcycle enthusiast. In reality, they are the worst of the outlaw motorcycle gangs in America. They run guns, drugs, whores, and create general mayhem and destruction everywhere they go. They are also without a doubt my most reliable clients.
"They got a club over in Bensonhurst," said Campisi. "Joey Bags and Paulie are gonna have a sit down with them tonight. They want to use these Cruasder fucks to mule coke and dope across the country. They're always going on these cross country rides to Piss-ant, Florida or somewheres out in California. They don't go on the interstate, and they can make drops and deliveries to our people in Miami, Kansas City, or wherever. Instead of a fucking pick-up truck carrying two hundred pounds, fifty bikers carrying six pounds a piece make drops over the course of a week. "
My mob lawyer hat was on. I needed to play through the motions to get what I wanted at the end.
"Could be risk involved. One of these bikers could try to rip you off, get a wild hair up his ass and decide to rip off you and his club."
"He does that he's dead," Campisi said coolly. "And not just by our people. His own people. Those biker fucks, they don't play around if you betray them."
I knew that all too well. I represented their president on a murder charge last year. One of their members was talking to the ATF. He suddenly had an accident that cut his tongue out, or at least that's what I made the jury believe.
"I think it'll work," I said with a nod. "What's your exposure?"
Campisi shrugged and took another sip from his coffee. "Paulie and Joey are meeting with the top guys and that's it. If the rank and file get pinched and want to flip, they'll rat out the guys in their club and they will stand tall. No way it gets back to them or me."
"I'm just hurt and offended I wasn't consulted on this. Blackwood is my client, after all."
Campisi put his dried up hand on the back of my hand. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. "It's Paulie's show, you know how he is with you. Thinks cause you're a mick you can't be trusted."
I didn't say it, but I thought that maybe Paulie was on to something. Maybe he was the only member of the Campisi Family with a bit of sense.
St. Patrick's Cathedral
Manhattan
11:20 PMI had twenty grand in my jacket pocket when I went in St. Patrick's. The twenty grand was partially my cut on the forthcoming deal with the Crusaders, as well as my retainer for doing the don's legal work. Going into churches always made me think about my mother. Maggie Murdock was like a ghost. I had no idea where she was, and I often wondered what she was doing if she were still alive. I thought many times over the years about hiring a PI to track her down, but I always came up short at the last minute.
The twenty grand in my jacket didn't feel that big. It was just two hundred one hundred dollar bills bundled into twenty neat thousand dollar packets. The cash felt light enough when I took tit out of my jacket and stuck it in the poor box. They say all the good Catholics tithe ten percent. By that logic I had to be a great one since I tithed a hundred percent. Before I left I asked a priest to light a candle for my mother.
Maybe it was good to never meet her. That way she could be that devout catholic woman I knew all those years ago. She could never be corrupted like my dad was. She was frozen in time as a good woman. A good woman who would never have to witness what her son had become. I made a final prayer and prepared myself to go to work.
Red Hook, Brooklyn
2:14 AM"We don't fuck with drugs we don't make," Arthur Blackwood, president of the Crusaders Motorcycle Club, said with a scowl. "We're not errand boys. You want mules go to Washington Heights and get some project niggers. Why the hell should we stick out neck out for you? Because you say you'll pay?"
The two mobsters looked at each other. Paulie D'agistino, the underboss of the Campisi Crime Family, rubbed his chin while Joseph Baggato "Joey Bags" stuck his hands in his pants pockets and shrugged.
"That," Joey Bags started. "And, we both know your club is going under. The days of the outlaw biker gang ain't what they used to be. You're hurting for money, the ATF busts your balls day and night about that little weapons trafficking business you got. Fact of the matter is you need this. You're already making these fucking rides anyway, why not get paid while you're at it? Say yes."
Blackwood looked behind him, where three of his fellow bikers sat parked on their motorcyles in the back alley lot. Blackwood shuffled his feet and exhaled before finally nodding.
"Fine," he said.
Suddenly, a sharp whistling noise filled the air. A spinning object flew from the shadows and decked a biker in the forehead. Paulie and Joey pulled pistols from their waistbands at almost the same time the Crusaders did. The two sides looked across the lot for any indication of the voice's owner.
"The hell was that?" Paulie asked, looking at Blackwood. "You trying to pull something on me?"
"Me? What about you?! You're a goddamn informant or something?!"
Out of the shadows, a blur of motion slammed into Joey Bags and knocked him to the ground. Both sides opened fire, Blackwood fell to the ground as bullets fired above him. The figure jumped away before the bullets could reach it. The figure swung back into the shadows and up onto the roof of the warehouse.
), I've always been a fan of Gentlemen Agreements. They allow us not to waste our precious time writing character sheets that we might not use. No one likes seeing people butt hurt about their application not being picked (especially the GM). ;)
