[CHAR] Dead South: A Southern Gothic Post-Apocalypse

Factions of the Dead South

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Us

Jonesgroup

"My name's Mama Jones, and this is my land. Has been since before the End. You're welcome to stay, but only if you're willin' to work."

Us! The Jonesgroup is a ragtag team of survivors, mostly drifters who needed to settle down. The Dixies and most other settlements don't just accept random strangers walking up and asking for a place to stay. That's where the Jonesgroup differs: so long as you can contribute something, you're welcome here. Somehow, together, we'll make it.

Mama Jones' land is an old Southern plantation house, a large manor-esque building with a sizable footprint of land around it, right on the edge of a town named Bluffton that sits itself right on the edge between Alabama and Georgia. She was quite wealthy before the End. Other than Mama Jones' own room, the house boasts eight other bedrooms that about three people can live in comfortably, meaning most of the Jonesgroup sleep in the house at night. A few sleep in a converted poolhouse out back, which has two more bedrooms itself, and overlooks a backyard pond that the Jonesgroup has been getting its water from.

Most of the property's 30 acres are thickly wooded. There's a machete-cut path through the woods that leads out to a street with an old Waffle House on it, and this has also been claimed as Jonesgroup territory, working as both a lookout for oncoming raiders and a second kitchen. In true Waffle House tradition, people still settle disputes by fighting in the parking lot.

Population: About 30
Resources: Low
Leader: Mama Jones
Survival Strategy: Farming, Scavenging, Hunting, Gathering, Trading...

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Friendly and Neutral

Dixie Brotherhood

"Get on up outta here, now. From today on out, this here's Dixie soil. Also, never speak to me or my turkey ever again."

If you've lived in the Southeast, you know these types of people. The Dixie Brotherhood began as a loose affiliation of Alabamans and Georgians who held on to their lands through the End, converting their yards into small farms and their barns or trailer homes into workshops. Being largely blue-collar, Southern sorts- the Neighbors call them "hillbillies" when they aren't listening- it's none too shocking that they've recently been united under the speeches of one Sammie Hunter, a man who sees the End as, while surely a tragedy, also an opportunity to rebuild the South into a nostalgic vision of what it once was.

With their focus on preserving "Southern Culture" and staunchly traditionalist values, they take none too kindly to suspicious drifters and people from other parts. Nonetheless, most of the food grown in this area comes from them.

Population: Many hundreds, scattered about across two states
Resources: Mid
Leader: The charismatic Sammie Hunter
Survival Strategy: Small-hold substance farming with heavy cooperation

Appropriate Theme Song:

Maple Community Neighbors

"Welcome to Maple Ridge, neighbor. Get what you need and get on back home."

Aside from the Jonesgroup, the only other group operating out of Bluffton specifically, the Neighbors are a clan of traders. Originally from a nearby town, they migrated to Bluffton a few years back and took refuge in the local gated community, a pretentious upper-middle class affair named Maple Ridge. By some stroke of misfortune or cosmic destiny, not a single person who lived in Maple Ridge before the End survived the Olive Plague, and the people now known as the Neighbors were able to simply walk into the abandoned homes and streets and make it their own. They have made Maple Ridge into an impromptu trading post for every nearby group of survivors, protected from raiders by the community's tall steel gate. Scavengers, farmers, hunters and Dixies all meet together to buy and sell here. As a result, the Neighbors are generally better-off than the Jonesgroup, having more food to spare, better clothes, better supplies and functioning electronics.

While we are welcome to trade at their marketplace, they do not allow members of the Jonesgroup- or any one else- to join them. The Maple Ridge community is already full, thank you very much, they say.

Population: About 40-50
Resources: High
Leader: A very polite but rather touchy middle-aged white man who goes by Trader Joe
Survival Strategy: Trading, protecting their community

Appropriate Theme Song:

Liberty's Rangers (created by Enigmatik)

"All it takes for evil to triumph... Yadda yadda yadda you know this one already."

One for all and all for one! Liberty's Rangers are a rag-tag group of well meaning folks with a lot of heart and a lot of disorganisation. Eschewing a settled life, they instead spend their time migrating from area to area to assist those who have fallen under the boot of raiders or ne'er-do-wells. Living mostly off the land or by the kindness of those they assist, freely accepting anyone who accepts their tenents of equality and justice and organising themselves through community consensus. They might not always be the most efficient or effective at what they do, but they carry with them a message of hope and a not-insignificant amount of firepower, and really, that's all you need.

Despite their otherwise disunited appearance and operating style, anyone who takes up the mantle of a Ranger is given a blue armband with a five-pointed star to mark their alliegence to the cause, and they liberally use 'Old Glory Blue' whenever they need to leave a mark.

Population: Unstable, but usually within a score of 150.
Resources: Low
Leader: No singular leader, as the Rangers pride themselves on their direct democracy
Survival Strategy: Scavenging, recovering goods from raiders, donations from those they've helped.

Appropriate Theme Song:

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Hostile

Mounted Skulls

"You see us coming and you altogether run for cover! We're takin' over this town."

A local raider gang that ranges as far as Columbus, GA on the one side and Auburn, AL on the other. They extort food and motorcycle parts from the Dixies, goods and clean water from the Neighbors and, until recently, fresh-grown food from the Jonesgroup. They dress in your classic biker aesthetic, with the thick leather jackets and the skull bandanas.

They've also got a thing for vehicles (which, added to the skull bandanas, gives them their name): more than half of the Mounted Skulls ride on motorcycles, which are used in the post-apocalypse much like the cavalry of the dark ages, for lightening-fast raids and maneuverability. It is not at all uncommon to see a Skull wielding an actual sword in one hand while he rides, prepared to slice at a victim who can't get away. But they aren't strangers to trucks and cars either- an old pick-up or a hatchback can hold far more stolen goods than a man on a bike can. Because of the frightening speed with which they can rush another faction, take their belongings and be gone with the wind, nobody is very sure where their base of operations is.

Population: About 80
Resources: Mid
Leader: A heavyset young biker named Everett, rumored to have a meth addiction. He's apparently been trying and failing for years to set up a working meth lab.
Survival Strategy: Extortion of others

Appropriate Theme Song (and trust me, they blast it out their bikes when they ride up on you):

Gadsen Bannermen (created by Enigmatik)

"Men in this country used to know how to be men. We intend to remind y'all of how."

Originally a pre-collapse right-wing civilian militia based out of northern Alabama, most of the Gadsens perished along with the rest of society when the Olive Plague swept across the world. Most, but unfortunately, not all. Those few members of the Gadsens who survived found that their wildest dreams had come true, and the federal government was no longer around to interfere with their designs. The most visionary of their reduced numbers saw this new world as a tabula rasa to build their dream society: A return to the halcyon days of early America where the men were frontier vanguards, the women were good wives and those that opposed them were destroyed. With this dream in their mind, they began aggressively recruiting, migrating to central Huntsville to construct their new order.

Seeing themselves as a new paramilitary government, they violently oppose raider groups like the Mounted Skulls, while also extracting 'taxes' from the communities who fall under their 'protection' in a remarkably raider-like fashion.

Population: Some 40 odd Bannermen and another 50 or so 'auxiliary staff.'
Resources: High
Leader: "Corporal" Dean Gunn, an ex-National Guardsman now entering his mid fifties.
Survival Strategy: Small-scale farming and scavenging, extortion.

Appropriate Theme Song:

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[Enigmatik]

Hehe, first.

Caleb Carr, Horticulturalist and Outdoorsman

Caleb "CC" Carr

Nobody calls them a space cowboy.

The Basics
Non-Binary (AMAB), 27, Bisexual
6'4", 172lbs (190cm, 78kg.)

How They Look
Tall enough to be average in the Netherlands, but with a hunch to avoid slamming into doorframes and a figure that sits somewhere between 'rake' and 'slightly bulkier rake,' Caleb was never one to get lost in a crowd, back when those were still a regular feature of life. They cut scraggly and slightly unkempt figure with shaggy, tumbling locks of dark brown hair and an ever-present beard, trimmed down with scissors and the occasional luckily-found razorblade. Perhaps their most important posession is a pair of glasses that have become uncomfortably scratched ever since optician's visits became a thing of the past, which sit over a set of stormcloud grey eyes, graced with near-perpetual dark bags.

The apocalypse put an end to their cheery battle jackets and slimline jeans: now, Caleb wears clothes that are both rugged and practical, and always with a set of braces for their ankles and knees. This is combined with pads for their the latter for when they're out in the field, and they always keep a pair of hard-knuckled gloves in their pocket, just in case. They're almost never seen without a worn, battered, but still very much tough and functional leaather jacket, covered in patches to repair and reinforce the damage its taken, and they usually pair it with old faded band shirts and a never-ending parade of looted and mended cargo trousers, ranging from stolid khaki to urban camo grey. With a solid pair of rugged hiking boots to back it all up, CC looks for all the world like the outdoorsman that they've become in the years since the Olive Plague.

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What Came Before
CC was born as an only child in London (the British one, not the one in Arkansas, Kentucky or Ohio, ta very much,) to an upper-middle class family with bright prospects in life. They grew up a well-rounded figure, although perhaps a little bit more insular than most with two busy working parents. Despite the concrete jungle that was their home, weekend getaways and time spent in the city's massive parks imprinted an appreciation of the natural world on them from an early age, and by the time university options were on the table their grades were good enough for them to pack their bags and head to Nottingham University, where they started work on an undergraduate's course in Botany and Horticultural Studies, with an option for a year abroad.

During that year abroad, they made the fateful decision to head across the pond to North Carolina State University... The very same year that the Olive Plague swept across the world and ended life as they knew it. The UK closed its borders before Caleb could get on a plane to head home, and so as the disease tore its way through the crowded campus, they were stuck an ocean away from home, with things looking increasingly grim for the young Brit.

But there was, at least, some hope. Even as their classmates and lecturers fell to the plague, Caleb seemed entirely unaffected. A lucky quirk of genetics had rendered them either immune or asymptomatic, and once the dust finally settled and quiet reigned across the continent, they emerged, tenatively, into an utterly changed world.

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What Came After
During the initial chaos and collapse, CC weathered the storm by staying indoors, stealing the food out of their flatmate's fridges and making the blandest pasta to ever grace a set of cheap walmart plates. Two weeks in their newly-minted lifestyle as a hermit was entirely disrupted by the collapse of the water and electricity, finally forcing them out of the dorms and into the now significantly more depopulated world.

With nobody and nothing tying them to the NC State University, CC did something that most would probably think to be lunacy: they picked a direction and started walking, with little more than a rucksack and a guitar for company. For a while they followed the interstate system, camping at truckstops and petrol stations, heading into cities when they were in desperate need of supplies and using cars whenever they could find a pair of keys, on a trip to nowhere in particular.

Those first few years were the oddest. The world seemed quiet and still: nature had done little to reclaim the urban sprawl, and the wildlife was still accustomed to the peculiar new state of things. They travelled westwards: crossing the border to Tennessee on foot, driving through Nashville and on towards Arkansas. They encountered few people in their travels; mostly small groups that had cautiously began to spring up in the ruins of society, their voices a startling sound admist the quiet of a world reclaimed.

For three years they'd wander, purposeless, eventually turning back east in the Oklahoma panhandle. They saw oil rigs already succumbing to the Texas sands, coyotes battling with domestic dogs in Dallas' streets, and even encountered a group of truckers, still riding the roads using freshly pumped oil. As their journey continued through towards the wetlands of Mississipi, they began to encounter more and more settled groups; those who had survived and joined together to form new communities in this harsh world.

Some of them were friendly. Many were accepting enough to an unaffiliated wanderer such as Caleb, but for every two communities that would let them go along their merry way, there was one who tried to to take advantage of Caleb's lonely journey for their own means. Although they'd never used a gun prior to the apocalypse, they quickly had to learn the basics of operating the M4 they'd scavenged, although fortunately they found that the threat it posed was more than enough to dissuade most casual banditry.

It was in Alabama that they ran into their biggest hurdle. An organised group naming themselves the Gadsen Bannermen had established a stronghold in the ruins of Huntsville, and were not friendly to outsiders. After an intial scattered encounter that left one of the Bannermen dead, Caleb was forced to go to ground, creeping through abandoned buildings and travelling mostly at night, escaping the area by the skin of their teeth. Soon afterwards, they'd have their first encounter with the Mounted Skulls, and it was here that they realised that it was no longer viable for a lone wanderer to make their way across this new world. Uncomfortable at joining the Dixie Brotherhood and with the Neighbours not accepting new members, that just left the Jonesgroup for Caleb to join with, where they quickly fell into their role of horticulturalist, rennovating the property's large greenhouse and setting to work with their newfound community. They've stuck with it ever since.

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What They're Like
Quiet, often. Almost surprisingly so. A couple of years without very much human contact will do that to you; years hearing nature slowly reclaim the human world gives one an almost medatative outlook on life. Even now that they're back in a society, the call of nature still cries out to them, keeping them in the Jonesgroup's fields and greenhouses and guaranteeing that they'll be the first to volunteer for rekkies or hunting trips.

Back at the base, they prefer smaller, more personal groups to big meetings and group meals. They're not unsociable, far from it: they're happy to get out their guitar and play music, or to help a newcomer to the farm figure out how to handle crops, but more than a few people have gotten a distant impression from Caleb and their quiet, contemplative attitudes.

One other thing assists all of this thinking though: a not insignificant amount of chemical assistance. Caleb's learnt mycology the hard way: by fucking up batch after batch of fungi until they finally got a mycelium network to settle and mushrooms to sprout. All of them are edible, but some of them are more fun than others are. Ditto for their plants: almost all their carefully tended to sprouts and shoots are of the edible variety: tomatoes, maize, beans, peas and the like... But in a little patch, segmented off and guarded as carefully as their own child would be, sits a small crop of broad-leaved cannabis plants, unfeminised plants carried all the way from a legal grow op.

--

Why They Keep Going
They might not give off the vibe, they wouldn't admit it if you asked them to their face, but the real reason that CC wakes up in the morning? Pure, unrestrained spite. For all they know, everyone they loved back in London is dead, their home is gone, and they could be the only Brit in a five-state radius left alive on this godforsaken continent. But here they are, and here they'll remain. If the Olive Plague didn't get them, they're sure as shit not letting this new world do them in.

Oh, and the weed. The weed definitely helps.

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What They Can Do

Unsurprisngly, most of a degree in plant's science can be extremely useful in a world where the farms aren't churning out 96 million acres of corn every year. Caleb quickly found themselves a new second home in the property's greenhouse, and has slowly taken the mantle of chief horticulturalist, carefully tending to seedlings and shoots to hopefully keep the community in food and provide a little extra for themselves on the side. What isn't eaten or smoked can be traded away, and Caleb is always hard at work trying to push back the wilderness to enlarge their operations.

Weekends camping before the plague and years of rough living afterwards has also made Caleb an able bushcrafter. They can make rope from twine, extract tar from wood, identify most edible plants in an area and generally keep themselves sustained on the land. Finally, as a musician since the age of eight, CC's more than happy to pull out their guitar for a little evening entertainment, with an unusual repetoire of songs thanks to their strange cultural experiences.

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What They've Got With Them

Colt M4: The real deal, at least for civilians. A grand and change's worth of black metal and blacker polymer, taken from the house of someone with fifteen guns but no deadbolt on the door. A bit battered and worn from the years by CC's side, but still a perfectly functional weapon for use against animals and humans alike.

Taylor V-Class Acoustic: A gift from their father back in the UK, this Taylor is one of the vanishingly few posessions they still have from back home. Carried throughout their rambling across the continent to the Jones' estate, still in surprisingly decent condition.

Council Tools Jersey Axe: A real piece of Americana, for what little that's worth these days. Mostly good for splitting logs to feed a fire, although can be used to knock down smaller trees, doors, rotting drywalls and, in a real pinch, people should the need arise.

Bushcraft Tools: A shotgun spread of useful survival gear slowly accumulated across their time since the plague. CC's EDC would stagger most, and they're never one to be caught off guard, be it mending a leather jacket or stringing up their latest crop to cure.

Optional Fun Extra Things

What They Most Want: "One thing? To get back to the UK. Or what's left of it. Unless someone feels like making another Mayflower though, I don't see how that'll happen."

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be: "Now that brings me back. Wonder if enough folks would be interested to get a campaign running here? As for myself... Neutral... Chaotic? Chaotic Neutral? I guess that works."

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?: "What kind of horoscope-arsed question is that? But, if I had to answer... Heart. Gotta keep your noggin screwed on tight though; there's no hospitals to get you back on your feet any more."

Worst Fear: "Shit, at the moment? Getting my head blown off by those bikers. Other things tend to fall by the wayside in the face of the more immediate concerns."

Favorite Color: "A nice deep green. Like healthy, well-watered leaves."

What animal are they most like?: "Another one of these horoscope questions? Uh... Hmm... Badger. European, not the methhead ones over here in the states. Hardworking little buggers they are."

Favorite Song: "You ever heard Dopesmoker back in the day? Done by a band called Sleep? It's over an hour long of pure stoner metal greatness. Can't even get an electric guitar to work these days."

How They Dress: Caleb simply gestures down towards their clothes.

Thing they most miss about the world before the End: "Other than my family? Putting the kettle on, making a cuppa and plonking yourself down in a nice soft armchair. Oh, and warm showers."

[Timemaster]

Killa'

Name

Ashley “Killa’” Lost

Gender, Age, Orientation:
Female, 16, Bisexual

Height and Weight:
1.62 m, 46 kg

Life Before the End:
Even before the End, Ashley’s life was bad, very bad. She was the youngest of a family of 5, with a mother working 3 jobs and a deadbeat drunk dad who abused them after every bender.

Butch and Willow, Ashley’s oldest siblings, the twins, took care of the house when the mother was working. Their life soon turned even worse when another sibling was born and the father went crazy. In the years that followed, when Ashley was around 3, Butch killed their father after in a drunken haze, killed their mother.

Ashley can’t remember much about the time before the End but time passed and the first cases of the Olive Plague were detected

Life Since the End:
The Lost family, like countless others, were infected with the Olive Plague. Despite the initial hope that some might be immune or a cure will be found, the virus claimed all but three. Butch, the oldest brother, Willow, the eldest sister, and young Ashley were the sole survivors.

Butch, alongside a few of his new prison friends, escaped prison and, wanting to protect what remained of his family and take advantage of a world without laws, founded "The Butchers," a ruthless group of raiders. Composed entirely of former convicts or those who should have faced murder charges, The Butchers were relentless. They killed anyone that got into their way, enslaved the rest.

Under Butch's influence, Willow forgot her kind-hearted self and became a self-proclaimed torture master within the ranks of The Butchers, enjoying making others scream for hours upon hours before killing them. Ashley, still a mere child, grew up surrounded by the worst of humanity.

As Ashley grew up, she took her first life at the age of 10. A right of passage they called it to teach her how to be a “woman”. And by the time she was 14, Ashley found herself in charge of a smaller crew within The Butchers, a position that came with its own challenges. The members of her crew, underestimating the young girl, posed a constant threat, kept in check only by the fear of Butch.

By the age of 15, Ashley was a feared raider leader. Using her two blades to cut through anyone that even gave her a sidelong glance and bearing numerous scars, she was given the nickname “Killa’” by the Butchers after she cut down a family of 4, all on her own.

Sadly, for Killa’ her destiny seemed to be different than being killed by someone looking for food. One day during a raid on a farmhouse, a place that served as a home base for other survivors, Ashley found herself separated from her crew and found herself taken hostage. Her captors, wary of retaliation from The Butchers, kept her alive as an insurance policy.

As the group moved south, Ashley bid her time until an opportunity for escape presented itself. She managed to escape, by pure luck after a group of raiders attacked the group which provided enough of a distraction. Finding herself in Columbus, she was lost.

Not knowing where the Butchers are, she wandered around and found Mama Jones’s camp. With the survivors at Mama Jones’s unaware of her past or her reputation, this proved the perfect opportunity to scout this group, learn their weaknesses, numbers and hiding spots. Butch would surely come one day, after all and the best way for him to forgive her mistake, would be to offer him something good.

Personality:
Killa’ cares little about her fellow man with little to no empathy. Short-tempered and cunning, using her fellow man to get what she needs.

Spark:
Her family. From almost day 1, The Butchers were her family. Always ready to do anything she could to prove herself to Butch.

Skills:
Blade Combat: Killa’ has earned a name as a knife user. Be they throwing knives or straight up machetes, there aren't that many blades she hasn't used to kill or maim.

Con-girl: Before she became Killa, The Butchers were using her to join groups kind enough to save an innocent girl.

Fast: maybe not a skill per se, but Killa knows how to run. Her slim, toned body is a testament to that.

Role:
Scout: using her small stature and speed, the Jonesgroup uses Killa as a scout when needed.
Butcher: If there's no need for her skills, Killa uses her knife skills to skin animals or cut them into pieces.

Tools:
The only thing she managed to take from her captors was her family knife. It is a combat knife with the letters B.L. scratched on the handle.

Optional: Extra Details

What They Most Want:To be reunited with her family.

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:Chaotic Neutral

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:Their mind.

Worst Fear:Dying

Favourite Color:Blood red

What animal are they most like?: A Jackel / Hyena

Favorite Song:Aurelio Voltaire - When you're evil

How They Dress: whatever is available

Thing they most miss about the world before the End: her mom.

[Theyra]

Cal Redwood

Cal Redwood

Gender, Age, Orientation:
Male, 27, Straight

Height and Weight:
6'0 and 160lbs

Appearance:
N/A

Life Before the End:
The eldest of two, Cal was born to a family in Anniston, Alabama. Growing up, he had a good relationship with his family, especially his sister. However, he was somewhat bullied for being a "hillbilly" due to his family's status and his accent but tried to ignore them the best he could. Besides that Cal was always fascinated with aircraft and the night sky. An interest that was encouraged by his mother. But Cal was more curious about how they worked and how to make them. Eventually, this led him to want to make aircraft or even spacecraft for a career.

After high school, Cal managed to get a scholarship to Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and for a time, he was happy. Then the Olive Plague appeared, and he found himself in an increasingly worse situation before catching the plague himself while trying to leave Atlanta to check on his parents in Anniston. He does not know if it was luck or if God had a hand in it. But Cal would be one of the few to survive the Olive Plague.

Life Since the End:
Cal's first action after recovering was heading back to Anniston to see his family. Only to find that both of his parents had gotten the Olive Plague and had taken their lives instead of suffering a slow death. But his sister was nowhere to be found, along with his parent's truck. Cal tried looking for his sister for a time but realized she could be anywhere and had no clue of where she was. He stopped trying but hoped he would see her again, even if the chances were slim.

So, Cal stayed in Anniston for some years before supplies ran low, and he was forced to leave Anniston. After wandering, he found a settlement and ended up joining them. For a time, things were nice, and Cal was just glad that he was with people after spending years alone in Anniston. Then, a group of survivors calling themselves the Dixie Brotherhood showed up and offered Cal's settlement to join them. Most of the survivors, including Cal, were against this, and the offer was turned down to Dixie's displeasure, and they left the settlement alone. Only soon after, a group of raiders showed up and attacked the settlement. Most of the survivors were killed, and Cal and some others were captured. But Cal and the captives managed to escape into the night, but Cal lost track of his fellows as they ran from the raiders' camp.

Cal once again on his own and with nowhere to go. He wandered before ending up in a town called Bluffton and heard of Jonesgroup, and joined them. Now, with a place over his head and people to keep him company. Cal is just hoping that events will repeat themselves in regard to his old settlement.

Personality:
Cal before the Olive Plague, Cal was a curious and friendly person who enjoyed spending time with friends and family. Always wanting to learn more about things, especially about anything that could fly. Though he does enjoy his time alone with his thoughts and away from others. Often, spending time watching the stars at night and being optimistic about life.

After the Olive Plague and years of living in the new world, Cal has grown to be cautious and careful. First living on his own and later with a group. Cal had to learn the hard way how to survive on his own and without any safety net. Dealing with both friendly and hostile survivors. Even when he was apart of a group, he was still careful with people. Despite what has happened to the world and to his family, Cal can still be considered an optimist but will not always express or show it.

Spark:
Two things keep Cal going and sane. One is that despite getting the Olive Plague and being one of the few to outlast it. Cal knows that he needs to live to prove to himself that things can get better, and he survived the Olive Plauge for a reason. Two is that while he knows it is a slim chance and she could be dead. That Cal can find and be with his sister again.

Skills:
Studying as an aerospace engineer, Cal has knowledge about how aircraft and how they work. While this skill seems to be worthless in the post apocalypse. He does know how drones work and how to maintain them. Which he did managed to find and repair two drones and once the group set up a power source. Then, he can use them for recon and other scouting needs. Otherwise, Cal is good at driving and playing a guitar. Along with knowledge about the night sky.

Role:
Cal mostly does manual labor in the group, but once they find a way to recharge the drones, he has. Then he can focus on using them for recon and scouting. Along with repairing any drones they can find.

Tools:
Two drones and their recharging stations
Crowbar
Backpack
Flashlight
Beretta Px4 Storm pistol
Knife
Drone repair tools

Optional: Extra Details

What They Most Want:
To know if his sister is alive or not

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:
Lawful Good

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:
Heart

Worst Fear:
Being betrayed

Favorite Color:
Forest Green

What animal are they most like?:
No idea

Favorite Song:
Hopeless Wanderer by Mumford & Sons

How They Dress:
N/A
Thing they most miss about the world before the End:
His family and never being able to work on either planes or spacecraft

[Tortoise]

Preacherman Richie

Richard Ezekiel "Preacherman" Bell

"This ain't the End. I'll tell you when it's the End, buddy, don't you worry."

Sex, Age, Orientation:
Male, 37, Straight

Height and Weight:
At a ludicrous 6'6, Richie has spent all his life feeling like a giant amongst dwarves. You add to that the strange fact that he's managed to stay somewhat overweight during the apocalypse, and he comes in tipping the scales at 265 pounds.

Appearance:
Not one for grooming or for blending in, Richie has a brutalist red beard so thick that it makes you think of a brick. His red complexion and fit-fat physique also put you in the mind of a brick. "Brick-like," in general, is the best description of Richie one can have. The second best description is "A basement-dweller that robbed a homeless man and exclusively stole his clothes." His oddly dainty-looking glasses are held together by duct-tape and kept tight by women's hair bands wrapped around the joints.

Life Before the End:

Richie was a Troubled Child. That was the term used for him, by relatives and neighbors, and by his parent's fellow church-goers. It had made itself known by the time he was old enough to walk. It was the recurring theme of his life that there was "something wrong with that boy." He couldn't keep up in school, even with the simplest concepts. And there was the way he couldn't control his emotions: his sudden, flaming red outbursts of panic and rage. He kept his parents in a state of constant distress over his struggling grades on the one hand and over his actions on the other.

When he was in pre-school and kindergarten, they were told at least once a month that he had hit another student, cornered them and kept shoving them against the wall- like a game. His parents tried talking to their son so many times about why, but they could get nothing out of him. He would just stare at his shoes and give them simple, childish answers. "Because," he'd say, or "I dunno," or "I was mad."

When he was in middle school, he bit another student who said something mean to a girl Richie had a crush on. Not hit him, bit him. He clamped on to the skin of the poor kid's arm in pottery class and drew blood like a bulldog.

When he was in high school, another student sat in "his seat" in algebra class- a class he was perpetually failing- and, when they wouldn't move, Richie picked up his pencil and stabbed him in the hand. It wasn't sharp enough to cut deep, but he threw enough force into it to repaint the desk red.

The only escape was church. That had been the idea of his grandmother- an ancient Pentecostal woman, full of holy fire and good will. She knew her dear grandson was struggling, and she knew what the solution was. She decreed that he would start coming with her to church. There was no arguing with her: she was a Southern church lady of the old style, somehow both soft-spoken as a dove and with a iron will like all the holy men in the Good Book. She got her way.

That ended up being what saved young Richie. The church provided what other outlets failed to- a sense of purpose- and it never erased his problems, but it gave him a motivation to try. And the church his grandmother liked was really quiet. It wasn't like the overwhelming, loud halls of school or the aisle of Wal-Mart that put him on edge. It was easy to exist there; he didn't panic the same. He loved it.

When he started talking around the age of nineteen or twenty about being a pastor, his family wasn't surprised, but they were very cautious. The young man Richie been leveling-out for years, learning to reign-in his internal emotional tornado and keep himself wearing a mask of normality. He still came off a little slower on the uptake than other people, if you studied him closely- a little vacant in the eyes. His family's feelings at the thought of Richie behind a pulpit were deeply mixed. Except for those of his grandmother, of course, that old prophetess that was always the one member of the Bell family who swore she could see something in him. She was the force who pushed him onward, helping him get into Bible College and nearly covered the cost of tuition. He sold plasma and worked part-time to make up the rest.

Graduating Bible College, he spent years going through the usual motions of working with older preachers as their youth pastor, as someone who would cross-check their sermons ahead of Sunday, as an occasional fill-in when they were sick, and he'd work in factories and warehouses to make ends meet all the while. It was a hard life for him. The more stressed he was, the harder it was to control the angry outbursts that still plagued him. They succeeded in ending every relationship he began. There would be no Pastor's Wife for Richie Bell.

When finally managed to gather enough experience and enough support to break away and start his own church at the age of thirty- the same age Jesus began His ministry, his grandmother would remind you- the Olive Plague came knocking on the door.

Life Since the End:

He felt powerless to stop it. The Plague swept through Richie's new congregation, fifty our so souls that had- in his mind- put their faith in him to be their spiritual covering. They had come for his ferocious and thundering sermons, his shouted words of hellfire and brimstone that could make you swear you saw Heaven and Hades both right before your eyes. Richie was known as a loud and impassioned preacher. But soon they were asking him for prayers over their health. In the early days of the Plague, he prayed for the Olive to pass over his church. "No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling." In the midst of the pandemic, as it tore on through the Southeast like a dry fire and came to his flock, he had to switch to praying that they would survive it. "A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you." When the Plague dragged on for months within those souls suffering from it and neither left them nor killed them quickly, he finally prayed that the infected could just have a swift death. "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

When every prayer seemed unanswered, all his pleas thrown up into Heaven never coming back down, something in Richie broke a little bit. There were soon no souls left in his church because there were no souls left virtually anywhere. In this world of corpses and quiet, Richie went wandering alone, and to be alone for a man with his history of emotional and mental trouble is certain to cause back-sliding. Somewhere in the silent black he lost his mask of rational and sanity, walking empty Bluffton roads by himself and talking aloud to God. He doesn't know exactly when he started to cry to himself, or when he decided it was a reasonable action to shout at stray dogs and flocks of birds.

He still preached, is the funny part. His wanderings took him outside of Bluffton, to other surviving settlements. Whenever he'd come upon the sight of a human being still alive in the distance, Richie would know what to do: he'd start up a sermon, preaching to them exactly as if they were part of the congregation he lost when the Plague came through, and he would preach it to its conclusion even if they walked away. They didn't always walk away. It was the local Dixie settlements who gave Richie the nickname "Preacherman." He became welcome at their tables. Once, he even met Sammie Hunter himself, out near Atlanta. He preached for him a sermon on pride.

Richie's memory is faulty, these days. He doesn't remember exactly when or why he decided to stay with the Jonesgroup. Maybe because it was getting too hard to find food on his own. But more probably, it was because they are but a block away from the church his grandmother took him to as a child, the one that salvaged his mind. For a time.

Personality:
Unstable, mostly. Unpredictable. There are times when Richie seems to feel nothing at all, dead-eyed and cooler than the water under a frozen lake. There are many more times when he is made out of fire and brimstone, screaming and bellowing, angry at something or else passionate about something different; he gets loud. At night, late at night, he'll be seen wandering around the grounds lost in his own thought, staring at the stars. He sobs and cries out to God alone in the church where he thinks nobody can hear.

How he acts towards others, how he comes off, it'll depend on what mood he's in. Your first impression of him is essentially randomized. But, as he's been with the Jonesgroup for some two years now, most everyone's had enough experiences with him to learn the final lesson: that Preacherman Richie is a Molotov cocktail of feelings, and you never know what you'll get. He is intensely tempestuous.

Somewhere down inside himself, there is the soul of a very gentle person.

Spark:
Faith. Richie has a strange feeling inside himself, resting at the bottom of his heart, which he cannot shake. The feeling that he was spared for a reason. An innate knowledge that it's not an accident he still breathes. It's what makes him open his eyes every day.

Skills:

Preaching!

But that's a given. Outside of his passion, Richie has no one specific skill. His greatest attribute is simply his power and his attitude. He is strong, relentless. He is capable of working from sun up to sun down, lifting up things made of metal or concrete and toting them to-and-fro across the Jones property without ever complaining. People are always comically astonished as his strength when they see him working.

Role:

Preaching!

That's his official role, at least. Every Sunday morning, he leads himself and a small group of others over to the First Assembly of God Bluffton, where he delivers a fiery and thundering sermon. Emotional and mental issues aside, Richie is still a very skilled, captivating preacher, who can make a clear point and hold an audience purely by instinct. He repeats the ritual again on Wednesday evening. He also leads a prayer at the start of every day (between breakfast and lunch), and hosts a Bible study on Friday. Bibles are provided. He raided a bookstore. Here again, he shows a way of leaping over the usual bounds of his mental functioning and is surprisingly insightful about finding new interpretations to scripture.

But unofficially, he's also present for essentially any manual labor the Jonesgroup does. Tilling soil, putting up fencing, repairing walls with Gorilla Glue and old wood. He's also known for showing up unannounced to other's work areas and offering to help with whatever they need done.

Tools:

Remington 870: Quick, imagine a shotgun! Congratulations, you just imagined the Remington 870. It's the classic shotgun, and it was an easy find digging through pawn shops after the End. A shotgun is Richie's weapon because, much like himself when he's in a fight, it is loud, messy and unconcerned with who exactly it hits.

Nelson's Study Bible, NKJV: A Bible full of annotations, explanations and footnotes running along the bottom of the page, explaining the history and context of the ancient Bible verses. (Very useful for not getting confused by the old language.)

Swiss Army Knife: Pocket knife, bottle opener, can opener, screwdriver, scissors...

2006 Chevy Colorado, Orange: Working, but just barely. It's an old pick-up that squeals in pain whenever you press on the brakes and shutters with misery whenever it idles. But, for now, it moves. The gas tank is half-full and unless you can promise you've got something to fill the tank with, Richie will not take you anywhere with it. It's only for events that constitute an "emergency," as defined by the eclectic mind of Richard E. Bell.

Various Workshop Tools: Stored on the back of the Chevy in aluminum chests, you've got wrenches, screwdrivers, jumper cables, hex screws, actual screws, a sledgehammer splattered with red stains in the shade of don't-ask-about-it, and more...

Optional: Extra Details

What They Most Want:

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:
Chaotic Neutral

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:
Heart

What animal are they most like?:
A rabid dog. A creature that could've been gentle, but has been twisted by affliction into something uncontrollable and dangerous.

Worst Fear:
In his mind, what he considers to be his worst fear is Hell. But within his heart, buried so deep that even he himself does not realize it, his worst fear is something else: that he is really insane.

Favorite Color:
Emotion Red.

Favorite Song:
youtube.com/watch?v=WoIAcom2zAk

How They Dress:
Imagine one of those "The End is Near!" guys living through the apocalypse but deciding that he wanted to keep his quintessential style of dress intact. And then imagine he had a severe compulsive episode and had to draw a cross on every thing he owned. That is, verbatim, what happened to Richie.

Thing they most miss about the world before the End:
Fast food.