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Watch out.
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?
DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW, WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED
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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:
”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; Eve collected her things and left Coffin Hill forever, taking the curse of her family with her.
It’s been a year since she emerged again from 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.
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; Eve collected her things and left Coffin Hill forever, taking the curse of her family with her.
It’s been a year since she emerged again from 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.
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:
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.
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:
”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; Eve collected her things and left Coffin Hill forever, taking the curse of her family with her.
It’s been a year since she emerged again from 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.
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; Eve collected her things and left Coffin Hill forever, taking the curse of her family with her.
It’s been a year since she emerged again from 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.
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:
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.
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:
”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.
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.
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:
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.
Congrats, Doc; in fairness, I thought your sheet fit the game’s setting better than mine anyway. Well chosen, GMs. It stings, but that’s the rub.
Gonna take a step back and think about some other picks, or IF there are other picks; this might be a sign that I need to take a break completely. Looking forward to reading some of these stories regardless, though.
I want to thank @DocTachyon for his sterling chivalry in allowing me an extension to getting my competing sheet in, despite my insistence he needn't bother. I also want to thank @Master Bruce, @HenryJonesJr, and @Hillan for allowing such an extension to pass.
Now, without further ado:
Now, without further ado:
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
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:
"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.
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:
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.
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:
//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
◼ 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
"[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.
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.
In
One Universe: World Of Heroes - A Marvel Comics / DC Comics Crossover RPG!
→
4 yrs ago
Forum: Casual Interest Checks
I'm listed in the OP, but for legitimacy, I am interested and will be fighting Doc for Batman.
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
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:
"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.
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:
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.
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:
//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
◼ 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"[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.
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.
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.
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. |
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. |
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