Roman

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

The Batman Application

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 ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ T H E J U S T I C E L E A G U E}}

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

---

^{“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”}

The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost.

Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.

Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.

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:

---

With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others.

What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.

I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.

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

---

_{G C P D P E R S O N N E L}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Lieutenant, James 'Jim' Gordon
◼ Detective, Harvey Bullock
◼ Junior Detective, Renee Montoya
◼ Senior Detective, Crispus Allen
◼ Coroner, Leslie Thompkins
◼ Police Commissioner, Gillian Loeb}
_{G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James
◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter
◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder
◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Vicki Vale
◼ Gotham University Professor, Edward Nashton
◼ Gotham University Researcher, Diedre Vance}
_{G O T H A M C R I M I N A L C I T I Z E N S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Head of Roman Mafia, Don Carmine Falcone (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Head of Maroni Crime Family, Boss Salvatore Maroni (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Roman Mafia Hitman, Victor Zsasz (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Former District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Incarcerated, Arkham Asylum)
◼ Industrial Espionage Agent, Garfield Lynns
◼ Head of False Face Crime Family, Roman Sionis
◼ Heir to Cobblepot 'Fortune', Oswald Cobblepot}

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.

-

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

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

-

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two left. They rush me at the same time.

-

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

---

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

Roman's Scrapbin

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 ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ T H E J U S T I C E L E A G U E}}

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

---

^{“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”}

The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost.

Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.

Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.

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:

---

With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others.

What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.

I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.

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

---

_{G C P D P E R S O N N E L}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Lieutenant, James 'Jim' Gordon
◼ Detective, Harvey Bullock
◼ Junior Detective, Renee Montoya
◼ Senior Detective, Crispus Allen
◼ Coroner, Leslie Thompkins
◼ Police Commissioner, Gillian Loeb}
_{G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James
◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter
◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder
◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Vicki Vale
◼ Gotham University Professor, Edward Nashton
◼ Gotham University Researcher, Diedre Vance}
_{G O T H A M C R I M I N A L C I T I Z E N S}
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
◼ Head of Roman Mafia, Don Carmine Falcone (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Head of Maroni Crime Family, Boss Salvatore Maroni (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Roman Mafia Hitman, Victor Zsasz (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary)
◼ Former District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Incarcerated, Arkham Asylum)
◼ Industrial Espionage Agent, Garfield Lynns
◼ Head of False Face Crime Family, Roman Sionis
◼ Heir to Cobblepot 'Fortune', Oswald Cobblepot}

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.

-

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

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

-

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two left. They rush me at the same time.

-

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

Roman's Scrapbin

S O N I C T H E H E D G E H O G
S O N I C T H E H E D G E H O G

^{"What you see is what you get. Just a hedgehog that loves adventure."}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ Given Middle Surname _________________________________________________________ Age | ♀/♂ | Species _________________________________________________________ Marital Status | Occupation P H Y S I C A L P R O F I L E P H Y S I C A L P R O F I L E _________________________________________________________ [+] ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Descriptor ► Fur Colour - Colour ► Eye Colour - Colour ► Other - Scars, Tattoos, Piercings etc - C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S _________________________________________________________ [+] ▼ C H A R A C T E R N O T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Note - Related Information ▼ P A R A P H E R N A L I A ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Item - Description/Relevance ▼ O T H E R ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Other - Description/Relevance -

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T ________________________________________________________________________________________ This is where you outline your vision for the character including any notable changes or differences from the regularly accepted canon. This should be a short summary that provides insight into where the character is in terms of their overall progress and development. You could also include any notable differences from the standard canon you've added to your character. D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E ________________________________________________________________________________________ A full physical description to compliment your face claim and physical profile. In addition to physical attributes, this section can be used to flesh out personal mannerisms such as how the character carries themselves, do they talk with their hands or other such notable details. A sense of personal style can also be described here along with any other elaboration needed to complement the physical profile such as a description of tattoos, coloured hair etc. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) ________________________________________________________________________________________ Why do you want to play this character, what is the driving motivation behind both this desire and the character themselves. What do you hope to accomplish and where do you want the character's story/stories to go? For a driving character, there should be enough of an outline present to interest other players along with specifications towards how many players you're looking to involve or available roles. For supporting characters, this should indicate either a plot you've arranged to be part of or the type of plot you're looking to be involved in. Roaming characters have the privilege of doing either or simply stating a roadmap for the character to exemplify how you'd ideally like them to move between plots.

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Roman's Scrapbin

T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N

^{“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ Bruce Wayne _________________________________________________________ Caucasian | Vigilante | Independent _________________________________________________________ Gotham | New Jersey | United States of America C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S _________________________________________________________ [+] - G C P D P E R S O N N E L ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Lieutenant, James 'Jim' Gordon ◼ Detective, Harvey Bullock ◼ Junior Detective, Renee Montoya ◼ Senior Detective, Crispus Allen ◼ Coroner, Leslie Thompkins ◼ Police Commissioner, Gillian Loeb G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James ◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter ◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder ◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Vicki Vale ◼ Gotham University Professor, Edward Nashton ◼ Gotham University Researcher, Diedre Vance G O T H A M C R I M I N A L C I T I Z E N S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼Head of Roman Mafia, Don Carmine Falcone (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary) ◼Head of Maroni Crime Family, Boss Salvatore Maroni (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary) ◼Roman Mafia Hitman, Victor Zsasz (Incarcerated, Blackgate Penitentiary) ◼Former District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Incarcerated, Arkham Asylum) ◼Industrial Espionage Agent, Garfield Lynns ◼Head of False Face Crime Family, Roman Sionis ◼Heir to Cobblepot 'Fortune', Oswald Cobblepot - P O S T C A T A L O G P O S T C A T A L O G _________________________________________________________ [+] - P O S T C A T A L O G ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ -

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T ________________________________________________________________________________________ The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost. Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner. Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) ________________________________________________________________________________________ With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others. What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations. I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.

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Roman's Scrapbin

spoiler

working-class Batman with no known origin story, he just appears on the streets of Gotham as a hero of the people, with no wayne funding behind him just a man with ferocity and indominable will, who targets regular crime but also goes on a specific streak against the corporate elite of Gotham who have made themselves rich off exploiting the working class + selling themselves to the mob
[3:41 PM]
while Joker wasn't Joker yet but actually a well-known public figure coming from an immense fortune of old money who's CEO of some corp in Gotham, gifted the position by dear old daddy who has since died, and his detached-from-reality position/status plus a little bit of the inherent sociopathy of men like them makes him take Batman's targeted assault on the systems that prop him up very, very badly, until it all comes crashing down and his narcissism prevents him from seeing it as retribution but instead all his rightful property/wealth being stripped away, and then combined with general public reception being very positive to his empire crumbling he sees it all as a horrible nasty joke being played on him and him alone, and then he cracks and decides if it's all a joke he'll play along
[3:42 PM]
so you have this mystery, no-funds batman with no clear origin and the idea that really he could be anybody who'd had 1 bad day and decided to do something about it
[3:43 PM]
and this very well-documented origin Joker who's come from the insane Bruce Wayne kind of money and lost everything 'dear' to him (money and power, rather than parents) and reacts in the only way that makes sense to him (by becoming an insane clown hellbent on wreaking revenge on the city that 'wronged' him, and particularly the Batman who was the catalyst and in this setting may as well be Gotham incarnate come to reclaim itself)

other spoiler

riddler as an AI could be so fun
[5:25 PM]
Make him like, a learning algorithm that got out of hand of its creators
[5:25 PM]
Obsessed with gathering knowledge because that’s literally what it was designed to do, like a Gone Horribly Right kind of thing

spoiler v3.0

Encrypted
Network
Intelligence
Grid and
Mainframe
Archive

Roman's Scrapbin

Firefly as a corporate espionage agent tasked by Gotham's corrupt elite to destroy evidence of their corruption, who is then double-crossed when Batman and Jim's MCU put the squeeze on corruption and target Lyons as a suspect/potential informant, so one job he's on is sabotaged to tie up the loose end before he can be apprehended and caught, and he's left to burn from his own job but miraculously survives and turns around to wage a revenge-based war on those who betrayed him

Roman's Scrapbin

T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N

^{“I’m vengeance.”}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ The Batman _________________________________________________________ Caucasian | Vigilante | Independent _________________________________________________________ Gotham | New Jersey | United States of America C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S _________________________________________________________ [+] - G C P D P E R S O N N E L ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Street Officer James 'Jimmy' Gordon ◼ Detective Harvey Bullock ◼ Detective Renee Montoya ◼ Senior Detective Crispus Allen ◼ Coroner Dr. Leslie Thompkins ◼ Police Commissioner Gillian Loeb G O T H A M P U B L I C O F F I C E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Gotham Mayor, Aubrey James ◼ District Attorney, Janice Porter ◼ Assistant District Attorney, Harvey Dent ◼ Editor-in-Chief, Gotham Gazzette, Jack Ryder ◼ Field Reporter, Gotham Gazzette, Victoria 'Vicki' Vale G O T H A M P R I V A T E C I T I Z E N S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ CEO, Antarctic Industries, Oswald Cobblepot ◼ CFO, Antarctic Industries, Warren White ◼ CEO, Sionis Industrial & Janus Cosmetics, Roman Sionis ◼ COO, Sionis Industrial, Victor Zsasz ◼ Founder and Lead Jeweller, Félin-Bijou, Selina Kyle ◼ CEO, Hightowers LLC, William D. Sommers - P O S T C A T A L O G P O S T C A T A L O G _________________________________________________________ [+] - P O S T C A T A L O G ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ -

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T ________________________________________________________________________________________ This is a Batman turned on his head, dynamic reversed, the globally-known basics discarded. Real identity unknown and irrelevant, The Batman feels to been birthed directly from the oppressed suffering of Gotham's working-class, a walking avatar for the ever-looming class war; someone, somewhere, grew tired of the exploitation of the masses, and grew disillusioned with the idea that change would come, tired of waiting for protests and movements and cancellations to enact sweeping change. Waging his war without the backing of Bruce Wayne's usual billions, The Batman is a brutal, unforgiving, resourceful man, leveraging every advantage and exploiting every weakness. While still concerned with petty crime, his efforts are less about prevention or striking fear, and more about inspiration and unification; when a teenager robs a liquor store with his father's snub-nose, is it for thrills? Or is it because eighty dollars in their hand pays for a week of food, and 3 bottles of booze equals 3 nights without the belt across their back? When an unemployed man agrees to play night-watch when a local mob boss needs to move contraband, is it because he's trying to get his foot in the door of organised crime? Or is it because eleven interviews and eleven rejections weigh heavily when the rent cheque is due? And most critically, why mug the lady allowing herself her once-a-month spiced latte treat, when there are hundreds upon hundreds of billions being stolen from the common man every single day? Why not steal it back? This is The Batman's key focus; the Fortune 500, the 10 richest CEO's, the pompous, entitled, exploitative, planet-destructive, callous 1%, who care more about the extra zero on the end of their octuple-figure annual bonus than a mother forced to pick which one of her children to feed each night. The Batman is a soldier, but not in the war on crime; in the Class War. Gotham's real criminals are those in the penthouses, the board rooms, their ivory towers built as headstones upon the planet they are killing. These are the men who need locking away. This is the Batman's mission. He will inspire and bring hope to Gotham's working-class masses; he will frighten and instil fear to those who grow rich from their deaths. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) ________________________________________________________________________________________ A true Year Zero for The Batman, he appears in Gotham apparently overnight and begins a brutal campaign against the criminal elements of the city; but while at first the police appear complacent to let him have his fun doing their 'jobs' for them, heads soon turn when it becomes apparent this new vigilante is waging a war on white-collar crime just as fierce as that on violence and gang-banging. Making quick enemies of powerful people, The Batman becomes GCPD's number one priority, and finds himself contending with the 'boys in blue' as just another gang that needs putting down. Naturally, as The Batman wages his war, power balances will shift, and the face of Gotham City will change forever.

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Roman's Scrapbin

theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/07/jap…

Japanese magic apocalypse urban fantasy horror. Yokai, spells, survival, etc.

Could mix with that big black coffin that got cracked open in Egypt?

Roman's Scrapbin

- John Constantine new origin arc

- Eve Coffin/Aava Arkham/Arkr's Cairn/Magpie Witch homebrew mashup + witching killings in time loop/trapped in town

- Batman Brother EYE arc

- Batman Two-Face Finale arc

- Batman revised origin flipped Bat/Joker dynamic

- Batman Magpie murders

Roman's Scrapbin

J A W B O N E
J A W B O N E

▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅

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^{_{"One time, I gutted this choom kid, right in front of this pig's eyes, for shits 'n' giggles."}}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y John Doe _________________________________________________________ 30's | ♀ _________________________________________________________ Single | Ganger/Merc | Maelstrom P H Y S I C A L P R O F I L E P H Y S I C A L P R O F I L E [+] ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Lean - Descriptor ► Caucasian - Colour ► N/A - Colour ► Neon Red - Colour ► Other - Several Maelstrom ganger tattoos. Extensive Cybernetics. Absent lower jaw. - C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S [+] ▼ C H A R A C T E R I T E M S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Items - Related Information ▼ K N O W N A S S O C I A T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Name - Description/Relevance ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Skill - Description/Relevance -

C H A R A C T E R H I S T O R Y C H A R A C T E R H I S T O R Y This is where you outline your vision for the character including any notable changes or differences from the regularly accepted canon. This should be a short summary that provides insight into where the character is in terms of their overall progress and development. You could also include any notable differences from the standard canon you've added to your character. D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E A full physical description to compliment your face claim and physical profile. In addition to physical attributes, this section can be used to flesh out personal mannerisms such as how the character carries themselves, do they talk with their hands or other such notable details. A sense of personal style can also be described here along with any other elaboration needed to complement the physical profile such as a description of tattoos, coloured hair etc. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) Why do you want to play this character, what is the driving motivation behind both this desire and the character themselves. What do you hope to accomplish and where do you want the character's story/stories to go? For a driving character, there should be enough of an outline present to interest other players along with specifications towards how many players you're looking to involve or available roles. For supporting characters, this should indicate either a plot you've arranged to be part of or the type of plot you're looking to be involved in. Roaming characters have the privilege of doing either or simply stating a roadmap for the character to exemplify how you'd ideally like them to move between plots.