noir city ooc

Evening, fellow Poisonvillians! I'm Cairo, also known as czolgosz 'round these parts, and I could gush on and on about how excited I am for this game and how inspiring and original and thoughtful its construction is, and how amazing its mods are, but I guess I already did, whoops. TO THE CHARACTERS!

Firstly (and if we're adhering to hierarchy, more importantly), there's Tom Rowley (dragonshoard) the 51-year-old counselor/consigliere to the Capo over at the Two Belles. He is both greedy and miserly to Dickensian extremes — you could call him the Ebeneezer Scrooge of the mafia, or the Grinch Who Obtained Pecuniary Advantage by Deception. Jokes aside, however, he's a miserable old bastard who is no fun at parties, scowls a lot, talks very little (apart from the occasional disparaging remark), and skulks home every night to an empty house where he gets up to god-knows-what. (In the semi-darkness, because he's too cheap for proper lighting.) Other notable things about Tom: he was injured in WWII, and walks with a pronounced limp; unlike most high-ranking members of the mob, he is neither family nor Italian, instead hailing from a clan of Irish-American grifters; and no one, not even close "business" associates, really counts him as their friend.

Possible plot connections:

• He owns a bunch of run-down properties in Castor Flats, and moonlights as a rather negligent landlord. There are vacancies, if you're interested...
  
• He's rumored around City Hall to be A Fairly Bad Guy, and one that We Ought to Take Down Someday, though no one really has any concrete evidence as to what Bad Things he's done. Periodically they haul him in over fairly petty stuff, but he always manages to get off lightly. (Mostly because bribes.) If you want to have history there, lmk!
  
• Two Belles folks: he's been around for about a decade, so even though he's an unfriendly son of a bitch, everyone knows him. To the completely uninitiated, he appears to be a loyal regular, though he doesn't dance, socialize, or even seem to enjoy the music all that much.

Next, at hypocrisies, I've got Mahmoud Zoua (called "Moody"), a 29-year-old detective in the Vice division, and Tommy Ueda (dirtywork)'s partner. He hails from Dearborn, because of course he does, where he was raised to be an upstanding middle-class first-generation Arab/Muslim-American who'd become a crime-fighting dynamo of righteous awesomeness and save lives, banish evil, etc. Then he actually became a cop, was deeply disillusioned, and moved far enough away from his family that they wouldn't have to see him nurse his emotional wounds with the Salves of Immorality. Or more to the point: he has a really absurd amount of sex. Like, pathologically so, but it's 1954 and what is psychotherapy? It kiiiiind of puts him at odds with the laws he's tasked to enforce sometimes, which is um, oops.

PLOT THINGS:

• I feel so weird pimping out my character like this is Snogwarts or those historically-themed Tumblr smut RPGs, BUT it's kind of a necessary thing to do, so I will just put this out there: if you feel your character — young/old, male/female, married/single, gay/straight/bi/whatever — would be interested in Moody for whatever reason, at whatever time, please let me know! He's a borderline addict. He's interested, too. And it opens up doors to the next thing, which is
  
• Information exchanges, whether witting or unwitting — but probably the latter, since Moody (at this point) still makes an effort to be a legitimate detective. He totally talks in his sleep.
  
• Criminals he's busted — or tried unsuccessfully to bust — before.
  
• Colleagues who suspect him. This'll probably be more of a Thing as the game unfolds, I'm thinking? But for now, something to keep in mind.

And uhh this is long, so here's my contact info before I dash: dayspavillain @ gmail, and hound sweaters on AIM. That's all, folks!

Hey, all! This is Elena, AKA wonderwoman. I'm a Jill-of-no-trades living in Alabamer, USA, who has an intense love for period games and shows, and a real attraction to darker storylines.

This here's Jean Gibbons, who goes by her childhood nickname of Jeannie. She's the younger sister to Dotty Gibbons (badpath), and a former farmgirl whose land was seized by the bank during the Depression. She attended her significant school years in Personville after her parents got jobs and moved them into a crowded apartment, and is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. As of the start of the game, she's just been promoted to a reporter position at the newsdesk, which means she'll be looking to dig her impeccably-painted red nails into your character's business.

My strongest inspiration when I was coming with Jeannie was, "What would Lois Lane be like, if she were somewhat nicer and lived in Gotham?" and I came up with this lady. Jeannie is Chaotic Good in alignment--a little cynical and judgmental, but ultimately believes in giving a voice to people who don't have one, and will go to sometimes reckless lengths to get a scoop. She has a daring flair and finds danger irresistible, and can be found dolled up and dancing with people she's never met before in the clubs on weekends. Her father disappeared during the Battle of Midway in the Pacific Theater, and she's been on an obsessive quest to find out what happened to him ever since. Once you see the depths of her obsession and realize it's because she's never taken the time to grieve, it's a little sad. And finally, she throws a really nasty fastball, having learned some pitches from her father. (You should ask to see it.)

Alrighty, so here's what I'm looking for in terms of connections:

• PEOPLE TO GIVE HER STORIES. If you're willing to have your character come to her with a source or any information on something seedy, I would love you for it.

• People she can actively help, by telling their stories. This is a HUGE part of the reason why Jeannie is good, and not simply neutral; it's pretty much vital to her character development that she gets these kinds of lines.

• Unsavory types she can hang out with sometimes. She wouldn't be best friends with your character if she knew your character was a big-time criminal, but a dangerous sort of friendship, or even pseudo-professional partnership, would make me very happy.

• A professional pal. Someone she can disclose her ambitions to, and possibly learn from, would be excellent. Otherwise, commiseration and just being friends is also okay. On that subject:

• Friends! Feel free to read her app to get the larger picture. Bonus points if you can offer a friend in a high place.

• Enemies, or rivals. I thrive on enemyships/frenemyships as well as friendships, and so do my characters.

• Someone who dogs her steps, whom she can mutually snoop on. This would be a weird, push-and-pull type of power dynamic, but I think it has the potential to not only be intriguing, but also hilarious.

• Friends she can call to give her a ride home from the dance clubs. She stays out late on weekends, and sometimes with strange men, but she never goes home with someone she doesn't know. And finally--

• An old flame would be nice. For hooking up for old time's sake, or genuine feelings, or even just a deeper level of understanding than she has with other people.

Are you guys so excited? We are so excited! And we still have more apps and intros yet to come, hooray!

For those of you who are pretty settled in, we don't want to leave you twiddling your thumbs, and we do want to give everyone a chance to brush off some dust and rust if you haven't recently been in a game that features a lot of logging. So this is to clear out cobwebs and get comfortable in our character's voices before we really get things going, warming up our writing muscles in preparation for what looks to be a really good game! We're also going to have more drabble challenges throughout the run of the game because frankly, they're just fun! :D Each will run a little differently but to start things out we're going for a classic Bingo table, with the theme of "Backstory," meaning all drabbles need to take place at least a month ago (summer of '54 being the cut off). This should also help us drum up some extra connections that might not otherwise be easily facilitated in game, because these drabbles are canon!

The nitpicky details for this one are:

• You need five drabbles in a row (vertically, horizontally, diagonally) to get a bingo, which will earn you 5 Points Bank points!
• The most you can earn is one bingo per character, though you can write as many prompts as you want.
• Drabbles must be 200 words or more to count towards a bingo.
• Bingos must include:
  • One narrative
  • At least one drabble taking place in Personville
  • At least three drabbles written with other players

To get your bingo, please post this table somewhere (character journal, cdj, etc.) and then comment below with a link to your table. You're also welcome to prod other people for drabbles in the comments of this entry. As you write drabbles, please edit your tables to include links to your drabbles (posted in noircity with the -backstory and -challenge tags, please). Once you have a bingo, comment to the Points Bank entry to claim your five points! :D

If you've got questions, just ask and we'll get back to you asap. And now, without further ado: ( The Prompt Table )

Hi guys, I'm Jewels satan (andthecaseofthe on AIM) and this is Sam Brooks. Sam is a firefighter with City Hall. A couple of years ago, he was putting out a fire and got caught by a beam that came down. It burned off a good portion of his face and now he wears half a mask to cover it up. His wife tried to stay with him as long as she could, but she couldn't put up with it all and asked him for a divorce, which he granted her about a year ago. He's recently gone back to work, but is pretty sure that someone in the company sent him in there to die. The door was locked when it shouldn't have been and he had no way out. He doesn't know who, and he can't prove it but he's very suspicious.

Sam needs pretty much everything. He needs friends, acquaintances, enemies, fellow firefighters if anyone's looking to pick up more characters, an ex-wife and pretty much anything that someone will throw at him.

Hopefully I'll be bringing in a nice lady, though I am stuck not at home and won't be around at all tomorrow so she has to wait. I could use someone who might want to help me proofread some things though, because I am really bad at it. Clearly.