Quick and dirty HMD! Comments screened for shy ppl.

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Wolfy
Contact: https://www.plurk.com/quesadillawizard
Age: 34
Other Characters: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: James "JW" Walter
Age: 27
World Information:

JW's setting is sort of your run-of-the-mill Earth with hidden supernatural things that have some kind of magnetic attraction to main characters. It's sort of a monster-of-the-week kind of setting for a series of short stories I'm working on. As of right now there are no real history differences between our own world and the Earth JW is from. I may eventually decide that some famous figure like Elvis was actually a unicorn or something, but that doesn't really matter in the long run.

There are three classes of supernatural being: undead, fae, and monsters. Undead contains everything from ghosts to vengeful 'demons' to homebrew necromancy projects. Fae are kind of that weird blurry space between creature and spirit and they don't even give a damn. They are unstable, free-roaming, and snobby. Don't mess with them. Monsters are simply creatures bound by biology that haven't been discovered or have fallen off the radar. They're the rarest.

Other dimensions exist and if you know where the thin places are you can pass between them. Like the layers in an onion, there are infinite dimensions circling the main 'base' dimension the stories take place in. Some are just blurry in-between places. It's possible to slip out of the world behind a gas station in Tennessee and pop out of some lady's bathroom in China. However you must know where the roads are. Otherwise, you might just wind up somewhere in the vacuum of space and promptly turn inside out. Some dimensions are exactly the same as Earth except you, dear reader, you actually play the saxophone. Or if you already play the sax, you're a belly dancer. Or maybe a rabbit.

There are three notable dimensions that cluster close to the base-world and make up something called The Memory Dogma: The Attic, The Underbed, and The Basement. They are guarded by three horses: Lost, Forgotten, and False. The memories of man collect here and sort of form a 'mindscape' for Earth as a whole. Some think fae are formed from this place but nobody knows.

One unique feature of this setting is that every single sentient being capable of reasoning between right and wrong has something called a Mindscape. This is a world that exists inside the individual's head and is populated by manifestations of facets of their personality. The happenings and appearance and even the functionality of this little world reflect what has happened to the character. Everyone's is different and VERY rarely do people even know theirs exists. JW has had brief brushes with his since he did some involuntary dimension hopping, but doesn't really understand it. He just knows there's an annoying trap-mouthed man in his head.

Character Information:

JW was born around 1950 in rural Tennessee. His family mostly got on with the help of his mother's parents. When his mother contracted pneumonia and died suddenly (heart enlargement) his father fell into a guilt-driven depression and drinking habit which set off the schizophrenia that his own father had suffered from. He grew abusive and JW was taken away from him to live with his grandfather on his mother's side at the age of six or seven. JW lived with him and learned farm work until he was 14. After the death of his grandfather he was placed back with his father who had deteriorated greatly. JW was a sheltered kid and didn't know to look for help. He was pulled out of school after failing tenth grade and kept secluded from people.

He left his father's home at 18 after a violent fight and took his grandfather's horse to a different town. There he fell in with a Mexican-American family after making friends with the oldest son, Horas Valentine. They unofficially adopted him and repaired the damage that had been done to him as best they could. He was fed, clothed, given a role in the family, and spoiled just a little bit. He grew up along side Horas and the two of them did everything together, including sharing an apartment and working at the same deli. They were like Timon and Pumba if both of them were Timon and smoked weed and occasionally vandalized buildings.

"Hawksaw" is the first ‘book’ in the series. It describes JW’s arrival in the year 2007 from 1974. It hints that this is not his first adventure, but a terrible creature he encountered on the last one still has his claws sunk in deep from Beyond. The being, described only as The Man in the Cap attempts to puppet JW’s body from within and force him to kill himself. JW over powers him and manages to force him ‘back through the veil’. The Man in the Cap steals a chunk of his memory on his way to being shoved into spectator mode and proceeds to make a pest of himself from there on out.

The thing about JW that I want to make very clear is, yes he is schizophrenic and he is aware of it. He experiences audio and visual hallucinations along with pain, but they are separate from the ‘man in his head’ that yells at him for the entire book. JW is very familiar with his symptoms. The Man in the Cap is very real as an entity.

JW tries to confess to the murder of a girl from 1974 but being only 27 years old, no one believes him. The Man in the Cap causes an outburst that makes the cops to write JW off as ‘just a crazy homeless kid’. Unbeknownst to JW, when they investigated his claim, they managed to find a photo of a man that looked very similar to him, sure enough, from 1974. Bugle, Chief of Police, got mighty spooked and decided to throw JW onto the streets so he didn’t have to deal with it.

The local busybody church lady named Betty notices JW and decides to make him her new charity project. She drags him to church and shows him off to the Do Good Comity to make herself look good. JW is bounced around from host to host, leaving each time due to things like alcohol triggering his PTSD or simply witnessing domestic abuse. When Betty can’t keep him homed, she elects to put him in a ‘historical’ house at the edge of town as its groundskeeper.

JW is not an idiot and accepts this free house. The moment he manages to land a job and starts to get his feet under him it turns out that Something Else is in the house with him: an undead taxidermy nightmare of a wolf that can speak and wants him out. JW, fed up with just about everything at this point, refuses to leave. A fight ensues which causes his elderly neighbor to overhear the ruckus and rush JW to the ER for a severe eye injury.

The neighbor is Mrs. Shirley and she tells JW that Betty also put her on the hill as a ‘charity trophy’ and they bond over how much they hate her.

With a huge ER bill hanging over his head, JW is more determined than ever to defy the creature living in his house. One day, while he is out, the city brings some machines onto the property to deal with some dead trees. The wolf, who we learn is called Deuteronomy, thinks they have come to knock down the house and in an act of desperation, contacts another monster that lives even deeper in the house. Deuteronomy was made by a man and the monster was made by the same man. As the elder, she orders it to destroy JW so that development of the land will stop, but the monster, Feverdream, decides to run out into the town and Do a Crime instead. Deuteronomy is like “fuck”.

JW returns from an outing and actually manages to talk to Deuteronomy without her trying to murder him, he reveals to her that he just wants to live in the house and not destroy it. She’s like ‘Oh. hey by the way…” so he teams up with her in search of Feverdream so that the monster does not kill anybody in town because a) that would be bad and b) they will TOTALLY knock the house down if folks know that horrible monsters come out of it and also that horrible monsters exist??? Also neither of them will have a house.

So, armed with a spell that Deuteronomy’s creator used to make Feverdream, they chase the monster through town. They run into Chief Bugle and he gives them a lead on where the monster went. He’s also like “What the fuck this isnt in my job description.” JW and Deuteronomy trail Feverdream into someone’s house. There’s a really cool fight that eventually starts a fire and the paper that the spell is on gets burnt up. JW opts for just making up his own spell on the spot and beating the monster to death with an empty rifle. The house burns down and JW is rescued from the wreckage by the fire department.

In the end, JW’s medical bills are “taken care of” by Bugle on the condition that if any other monsters pop up, JW takes care of them. Instead of, you know, people trained in combat that have guns. And muscles. Okay.


"Bitter Pills" is the second Hawksaw story.

While waiting on a call from a real actual normal job for real actual normal people, JW was called on by Bugle. He went with him to the home of a little old man in assisted living. The entity in the house made his eyes hurt and his nose bleed and soon, JW discovered it to be a strange angel-looking being. He couldn't hear anything it said so JW called on Deuteronomy for help. She agreed to come to the house with him and act as a translator. It turned out, all they needed to do was move the sofa off the angel's leg so that it could stand up. Once this was done, it thanked them and disappeared.

Case closed! The next hurtle to come up was JW's impending doctor appointment. This would be the appointment that got him his first prescription to help with his hallucinations, as per Bugle's demands. If he fixed his head, he got to go on jobs. If he went on jobs, he got to stay in the house.

While waiting for the doctor's appointment, JW drifted aimlessly around town, feeling guilty that he'd possibly missed the other normal person job calling him back. While hiding in the woods and feeling sorry for himself, discovered a big and mysterious creature in the woods behind his house. He didn't get a good look at it and it occupied his mind during the days leading up to his doctor visit, filling him with worry and dread that he could not keep doing the job. Finally the day did arrive and his neighbor Shirley drove him. The appointment went well and soon JW had himself a fancy new prescription.

The side effects were terrible. While it did cause his hallucinations to fade and made it impossible for the Man in the Cap to speak, it made him very nauseous and tired and it did nothing for his arm pain. He barely had a chance to adjust to them before Bugle called him on another job. He didn't want to get sick in front of the new client, so he skipped out on the medicine. He also went on the job alone because he didn't want Deuteronomy to know about the trouble he was having. This allowed The Man in the Cap to return and berate him while he investigated and scare him into being afraid of being found out as a fraud since JW couldn't find anything wrong. He quickly made up a bullshit ritual that would make the lady happy and left.

Shortly after he got home, his neighbor found him passed out on the lawn. Shirley forced him to tell her what was up and gave him some lemonade. JW told her how his medicine wasn't improving his life. She urged him to call the doctor and ask for a different prescription and after a little fussing, he gave in and made a new appointment.

While he waited for the new appointment to roll around, the woman from his previous paranormal job called him and told him that his 'cure' hadn't worked and that things were getting worse. He made up an excuse and told her to try a little longer. Deuteronomy overheard the conversation and demanded to know why she wasn't called. JW insisted that he could do things without her help and without his medicine. They had an argument about his health and she stormed off.

The next doctor visit came. JW was given a new medicine to try. This medicine helped both his hallucinations AND his pain but caused him to have long periods of lost time. It also sent his body directly (metaphorically) to hell if he dared to take it without eating--something he didn't always have time for. Something strange started happening in the house though. Food started to go missing and things started changing places like the toothpaste in his medicine cabinet or his loose change on top of the dresser. JW worried that he was doing these things himself during the space-outs that his new medicine caused. He worried he was eventually going to disappear all together and not remember anything, especially after Deuteronomy told him that the smoky creatures that followed her around weren't able to move things.

Bugle then called him on the phone and called him on his bullshit that he did nothing to help the woman with the haunted house. Things were even worse now. He threatened to pull their deal if he didn't shape up. JW wrestled with wondering if the new meds and the weirdness they'd added to his life were worth going back to the house and possibly getting someone (himself included) seriously injured or killed. JW begged for more time and after some groveling, Bugle let him have it.

He called the library to see if they had any books on ghosts, but when the librarian suggested kids' books, JW got frustrated and hung up. He went on a walk in the woods behind his house and encountered the big monster again. As he hid from it behind a tree, he decided he would dedicate himself to solving THIS mystery instead because he could actually see it with his eyes and see evidence from its passing on the ground. He became obsessed with it.

JW grew very familiar with the woods behind his house. He found clearings and ponds and even a mysterious old car full of recent magazines wedged between some trees. One night, the creature surprised JW. It knocked him to the ground, threatened him, and stole his gun. Wounded and scared, JW returned home to prepare for a real battle. He crafted some weapons from junk in his attic and hunted the monster in the woods for several days. One night he found it and they engaged in a Yakkity-Sax worthy chase and back-and-forth all out fight before JW managed to hook it with one of the weapons he'd made. He'd happened to choose silver and this was the creature's weakness. JW eventually managed to make it run away.

Sure that it would return and determined to beat it into complete submission, JW went entirely off his meds and camped in the woods like Bear Grills for like two days, slowly succumbing to withdrawal symptoms. He and the monster--which he deems a werewolf--meet one last time and he wins the fight. By that point, he's so riled up and delirious that he decides that he doesn't need Bugle's help and he doesn't need the doctor's help. He did that all on his own!

The next day, as he's cleaning himself up and boasting about his new independence, he notices a tiny man on his shoulder. This man introduces himself as Havoc, one half of his conscience. He explains that he and his brother (Harmony) leaked out of JW's head in order to tell him that going off his meds entirely was a terrible idea and that it was putting their entire world (aka JW's life) in jeopardy. They know about the Man in the Cap, who they name as Knives, and tell him about Knives's plan to create a machine to reach back through the veil like he had on the night JW had washed up in Hawksaw. JW tries to tell Deuteronomy about all this and also crow about how he was right that it wasn't actually him moving all the stuff around the house in a medicine-induced blackout. Naturally they hide from Deuteronomy and she doesn't belive JW until he manages to catch Havoc in a Tupperware bowl.

There is another explosive argument as nobody will believe JW that he defeated the werewolf in the woods. The next day, JW storms off into town for a walk and then decides to just keep walking. Suddenly he is overtaken by a vision created by Knives and his nightmare machine that tricks him into thinking he's back in 1974 and reliving the day that he killed his best friend who is also his girlfriend. He nearly runs right out in front of an eighteen wheeler before Harmony manages to catch up to him and snap him out of it. He reels and realizes what almost just happened as a result of his not taking Harmony and Havoc's advice. JW agrees to be more accepting of recovery and help. They reconcile and decide to work together. They still have a frightened lady with a haunted house to help.

Finally swallowing his pride and admitting that he needs Deuteronomy as part of his always-team, JW asks her for her help. Together, the four of them do some research and discover that all the symptoms in the lady's house don't match ghosts but fair folk instead. Bugle takes JW and Deuteronomy to the house and this time they send the lady outside to wait with Bugle. Armed with iron and a knowledge of fairy game rules, they call out the game. The fae retaliate by throwing every movable object in the house at JW and his friends. When they manage to avoid getting 'tagged' by sharp debris, the fae concede that they won the game and agree to leave.

But they are very very cross with JW for spoiling their fun. There will be consequences.

With the day saved, everyone returns home. Harmony asks JW how he feels about his new lot in life. JW admits that even though they won, he feels worse than before.

Personality:

You know that sign at McDonalds that says 'refills same visit only'? They put that there because of people like JW.

James Walter picks his way through life glancing over one shoulder. Street smart and shifty-eyed, if he can take it, he will. Finders keepers, losers SUCK. Growing up in poverty with an abusive father, hopping from home to home and then world to world, and suddenly landing himself in an important position as an adult has given JW a skewed sense of WANT vs NEED. Suddenly an entire town is at his mercy and his fingertips. If it's yours, he covets it. If it's addressed to him, he gives it the stink eye and dunks it in water first because why are you being so nice? Nobody is nice for no reason! Money is his weakness though and it's an easy way to twist his arm no matter how high on the ladder he sees himself. JW has gone so far as to swallow live goldfish for a crisp twenty dollar bill.

And yet, he hates those with money. He envies and despises them and lets his envy leak over onto other privileged people like folks with high educations, claiming them to be know-it-alls. JW is petty and delights in any failure he sees them face. He is a hypocrite in denouncing things like fancy cars and expensive houses when he himself would absolutely indulge in the very same.

On the social end of things, JW tends to go on long solo walks, only coming home when it's time for dinner. When he does hang around people, he tends to be a wallflower and provide snide internal commentary. He isn't good at talking to people outside of ranting, small talk, or making sales. People are more trouble than they're worth in his opinion and if he can't get anything out of them, what's the use in bothering at all? As much as he'd like to call himself a lone wolf, he's more of a lonely wolf. JW is mentally ill and his schizophrenia causes him to come off as rude (even when he isn't trying to be) and distant. He's in a lot of pain due to it and other issues with his body so his fuse is short and his patience is thin as he is. When JW actually does make an effort to reach out and attempt to make friends, he tends to shove his entire leg down his throat. The best way to be friends with JW is to not take anything he says personally because he doesn't mean half of it.

James does surprisingly well with children though. He's ashamed of his incomplete education and doesn't feel nearly as pressured to sound 'smart' around them. He talks to them like equals. Their protection is very important to him. That is, until they become teenagers. He finds himself easily frustrated by them since he is suddenly an opponent. He reads too much into the attitudes they put on as they come into their own and, in turn, makes himself a great target for anybody looking to ruffle his feathers. JW somehow seems to age at least ten years when he comes within a twelve foot radius of a single Hip Teen.

Though his moral compass is wobbly (lying, cheating, stealing, more lying, leading people he doesn't like into fae-infested groves so that they end up on the receiving end of their pranks instead of him) he's not the sort to go out of his way to be cruel. He might make messes in public spaces but he won't do things that could cause harm, such as setting fires or leaving broken glass laying around. He doesn't like animals very much and while he will shout and shoo strays, he wouldn't hurt them. He smokes weed like a train that smokes a lot of weed and has been tempted by other substances but will turn right around and judge anybody with a scowl if he sees them drinking, toting himself as a teetotaler.

James Walter is not a terribly good man, but he's not a bad man either. That's what is most important.

5-10 Key Character Traits:

- loud
- untrusting
- resourceful
- sarcastic
- lonely
- nosy
- immature
- hypocritical
- bitter
- vengeful

Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Fits!


Opt-Outs:
♦ WALDERGEIST
♦ GOBLIN
♦ SHADE
♦ TROLL
♦ NYMPH
♦ POOKA


Roleplay Sample:

A Thread from Victory Road where JW Gets Glasses And Is Annoying About It

Player
Name: Wolfy
E-mail: wolfyttwisted@gmail.com
Preferred Contact: plurk: wolfyttwisted / personal dw: wolfintheattic
Timezone: Central Daylight Time
Current Characters in Victory Road: none

Character
Name: JW
Series: OC
Timeline: Post 'book' 2

Original Character Background:
WHEN YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN GD WIKI


World Info:

JW's setting is sort of your run-of-the-mill Earth with hidden supernatural things that have some kind of magnetic attraction to main characters. It's sort of a monster-of-the-week kind of setting for a series of short stories I'm working on. As of right now there are no real history differences between our own world and the Earth JW is from. I may eventually decide that some famous figure like Elvis was actually a unicorn or something, but that doesn't really matter in the long run.

There are three classes of supernatural being: undead, fae, and monsters. Undead contains everything from ghosts to vengeful 'demons' to homebrew necromancy projects. Fae are kind of that weird blurry space between creature and spirit and they don't even give a damn. They are unstable, free-roaming, and snobby. Don't mess with them. Monsters are simply creatures bound by biology that haven't been discovered or have fallen off the radar. They're the rarest.

Other dimensions exist and if you know where the thin places are you can pass between them. Like the layers in an onion, there are infinite dimensions circling the main 'base' dimension the stories take place in. Some are just blurry in-between places. It's possible to slip out of the world behind a gas station in Tennessee and pop out of some lady's bathroom in China. However you must know where the roads are. Otherwise, you might just wind up somewhere in the vacuum of space and promptly turn inside out. Some dimensions are exactly the same as Earth except you, dear reader, you actually play the saxophone. Or if you already play the sax, you're a belly dancer. Or maybe a rabbit.

There are three notable dimensions that cluster close to the base-world and make up something called The Memory Dogma: The Attic, The Underbed, and The Basement. They are guarded by three horses: Lost, Forgotten, and False. The memories of man collect here and sort of form a 'mindscape' for Earth as a whole. Some think fae are formed from this place but nobody knows.

One unique feature of this setting is that every single sentient being capable of reasoning between right and wrong has something called a Mindscape. This is a world that exists inside the individual's head and is populated by manifestations of facets of their personality. The happenings and appearance and even the functionality of this little world reflect what has happened to the character. Everyone's is different and VERY rarely do people even know theirs exists. JW has had brief brushes with his since he did some involuntary dimension hopping, but doesn't really understand it. He just knows there's an annoying trap-mouthed man in his head.

Personality:

You know that sign at McDonalds that says 'refills same visit only'? They put that there because of people like JW.

James Walter picks his way through life glancing over one shoulder. Street smart and shifty-eyed, if he can take it, he will. Finders keepers, losers SUCK. Growing up in poverty with an abusive father, hopping from home to home and then world to world, and suddenly landing himself in an important position as an adult has given JW a skewed sense of WANT vs NEED. Suddenly an entire town is at his mercy and his fingertips. If it's yours, he covets it. If it's addressed to him, he gives it the stink eye and dunks it in water first because why are you being so nice? Nobody is nice for no reason! Money is his weakness though and it's an easy way to twist his arm no matter how high on the ladder he sees himself. JW has gone so far as to swallow live goldfish for a crisp twenty dollar bill.

And yet, he hates those with money. He envies and despises them and lets his envy leak over onto other privileged people like folks with high educations, claiming them to be know-it-alls. JW is petty and delights in any failure he sees them face. He is a hypocrite in denouncing things like fancy cars and expensive houses when he himself would absolutely indulge in the very same.

On the social end of things, JW tends to go on long solo walks, only coming home when it's time for dinner. When he does hang around people, he tends to be a wallflower and provide snide internal commentary. He isn't good at talking to people outside of ranting, small talk, or making sales. People are more trouble than they're worth in his opinion and if he can't get anything out of them, what's the use in bothering at all? As much as he'd like to call himself a lone wolf, he's more of a lonely wolf. JW is mentally ill and his schizophrenia causes him to come off as rude (even when he isn't trying to be) and distant. He's in a lot of pain due to it and other issues with his body so his fuse is short and his patience is thin as he is. When JW actually does make an effort to reach out and attempt to make friends, he tends to shove his entire leg down his throat. The best way to be friends with JW is to not take anything he says personally because he doesn't mean half of it.

James does surprisingly well with children though. He's ashamed of his incomplete education and doesn't feel nearly as pressured to sound 'smart' around them. He talks to them like equals. Their protection is very important to him. That is, until they become teenagers. He finds himself easily frustrated by them since he is suddenly an opponent. He reads too much into the attitudes they put on as they come into their own and, in turn, makes himself a great target for anybody looking to ruffle his feathers. JW somehow seems to age at least ten years when he comes within a twelve foot radius of a single Hip Teen.

Though his moral compass is wobbly (lying, cheating, stealing, more lying, leading people he doesn't like into fae-infested groves so that they end up on the receiving end of their pranks instead of him) he's not the sort to go out of his way to be cruel. He might make messes in public spaces but he won't do things that could cause harm, such as setting fires or leaving broken glass laying around. He doesn't like animals very much and while he will shout and shoo strays, he wouldn't hurt them. He smokes weed like a train that smokes a lot of weed and has been tempted by other substances but will turn right around and judge anybody with a scowl if he sees them drinking, toting himself as a teatotler.

James Walter is not a terribly good man, but he's not a bad man either. That's what is most important.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Psyduck
Password: Atomic Fireball


RP Sample:

A WEIRD PSL WHERE HE IS DEAD BUT HE IS POST BOOK 2

Victory Road Sample:

_{[After much trial and error, JW has managed to start out a video message without much issue. It's a little crooked and the very edge of his thumb is visible on the right side of the screen, but hey. You can see his face and he isn't covering the mic this time! He's frowning but that's just his usual expression.]}

Hello. Hey. It's Jim, listen, I'm over here at Pallet Town. Just got off the boat and a few miles back I think I saw something interesting in the water.

What kinda Pokemon is least likely to drown me if I ride it out there? I'm willing to barter for it, blew all my cash on the ferry. Thanks.

TEAM:

Dodrio
Clefable
Golduck
Phantump
Chandelure
Ghiraffarig

For future body-swap events here's all the wonderful things your character gets to put up with while driving their brand new James walter


Ghoul Eye- allows ghosts to be seen even when they have hidden themselves. Murders depth perception and occasionally suffers from lazy eye.

Bad Back- Don't exert yourself, grandpa

Stomach pain- due to not eating as much as he should, JW has near constant stomach aches due to acid production and cramping. Occasional nausea.

Other Aches- JW's knuckles swell sometimes. Occasional scar tissue aches in upper back from rapid growth over one summer as a young man. He has some killer stretch marks. Occasional scar tissue aches in right arm.

Fatigue- poor diet and poor muscle development

Audio Hallucinations- crumpling paper, footsteps, quiet radio chatter, occasional trouble telling the difference between things said out loud and things just thought to himself.

Visual Hallucinations- shimmer spots similar to heat mirage, parallel lines (such as text in books, wood grain, some fences) shaking or vibrating. Fine features on the faces of others occasionally distorted.

Nearsighted- people have eye colors and freckles? HAHAHAH no they don't.


But you know what? You're probably taller than everybody else in the game and don't have scoliosis. Good for you.

JAMES E. WALTER

[APPLICATION] | [HMD] | [PERMISSIONS] | [CALL JW'S WATCH]

CURRENTLY

HOME: House 34
JW is a very quiet neighbor but can sometimes be found laying on the front lawn smoking.

BAKERY: WALTER BAKED GOODS!

ABOUT

Name: James E. Walter (JW)
Sex: Male
Age: 35 (arrived at 31)
Species: Human.
Height: 6'9"
Weight/Build:
Ridiculously tall. Gangly and sickly looking. No muscle to speak of. JW is all sharp points and rough edges.

MORE PICTURES: jw's art tag

DAT EYE- JW's left sclera is a soupy yellow color and his pupil is an unnerving pinprick of black. An un-healing scar curves down from it over his cheek. When he can, he keeps a bandaid over it.

DEM ANTLERS- Faerie curses, man. JW sports a pair of whitetail antlers. In spring and summer they are still growing and covered in velvet. In fall in winter, they are polished and eventually drop off. Due to his poor health, they are thin, stunted, and brittle. He rarely becomes anything better than a six point.

POWERS

The Ghoul Eye
JW's left eye is cursed. It sees spirits and ghosts when others cannot. He also tends to get nosebleeds in the presence of ghosts which is a messy, annoying alternate way of detecting them.

Mundane Strengths and Weaknesses

STRENGTHS
-JW is a very convincing liar most of the time
-finding ways to do stuff faster with less effort and sometimes duct tape
-loyal once befriended. He'll stab a guy for you, man. Right in the face.
-good at saving money
-good at baking
-fair carpenter
-not half bad at killing monsters.

WEAKNESSES
-thanks to the ghoul eye, he can also be possessed by spirits as easily as he can see them.
-only possesses beginner driving skills.
-the ghoul eye also murders his depth perception.
-has eaten live snakes for money and will probably do it again
-poor sense of tact
-not good at making decisions under pressure
-physically weak


MEDICAL NOTE
(If mental illness is a squick/trigger for you, just let me know and I'll avoid the subject in our threads!)
JW suffers from schizophrenia. His symptoms are mild even when not medicated, but are exhausting to deal with day after day. These symptoms are amplified by his drug use. He exhibits hallucinations (detailed below), ritualism going down stairs, paranoia concerning the mail, and a singular delusion that has caused an eating disorder.

Audio Hallucinations: Hearing voices not unlike a talk radio station being left on in another room, crackling sounds like paper packaging, barking or whining dogs, thumps, cars in the driveway, the voices of familiar people calling his name, door chimes, locks or door latches coming undone.

Visual Hallucinations: Text in books and woodgrain on furniture will 'jiggle', doorknobs and handles are offset a few inches from where they actually exist, doorways feel shorter than they actually are, reflections and small shadows caused by glass or tree branches can be mistaken for insects or mice, crumbs or bits of dirt where there aren't any, etc...

JW does not hallucinate full humanoid figures. The closest he usually comes is having trouble recalling conversations or events because the facial features of the person he was with can change drastically when he tries to recall them.

PLAYER
Name: Wolfy
Age: 25
Personal Journal: wolfintheattic
E-mail: wolfyttwisted@gmail.com
AIM/MSN/etc:
AIM: catfishsuicide
SKYPE: catfishsuicide
PLURK: wolfyttwisted

CHARACTER
Name: James E. Walter
Age: 30-31
Appearance:
JW looks like a battered old stork. He is a tall, scraggly beanpole of a man who would stand at a whopping 6'9" if he stood up straight. Though he doesn't technically suffer from scoliosis, his posture is poor and his back is in bad shape for somebody only in his thirties. In fact, he looks a few years older than he actually is. JW's frame is emaciated and his skin is blotchy because of his poor diet. His nose is long enough to shelter small orphaned children from the rain, his cheeks are hollow, and his chin is sharp.

He dresses like an ugly floral sofa from the 70's and he is proud of it. JW usually wears baggy clothes that hide his shape and his right arm is always obscured by a cloth wrap to hide disfiguring scars he gave himself as a young adult. He'd rather be caught butt naked than without this arm wrap.

DAT EYE- JW's eyes used to be brown, but one has fallen under a curse. The sclera is a soupy yellow color and his pupil is an unnerving pinprick of black.

DEM ANTLERS- One day JW made the mistake of eating some blackberries that belonged to a phooka. In retaliation, the phooka cursed JW to grow antlers each year for every berry he stole. There were a lot of berries. These antlers follow the growth and shedding cycle of the average deer. Due to his poor health, they are somewhat brittle.

Chosen PB: I'll be drawing my own icons.
Isn't he pretty.

Personality:
You know that sign at McDonalds that says 'refills same visit only'? They put that there because of people like JW.

Cheap, relatively lazy, selfish, and shifty-eyed, James Walter picks his way through life glancing over one shoulder. Growing up in poverty and then landing himself in a rather important position as an adult has given JW a skewed sense of WANT and NEED. If it's yours, he wants it. If it's addressed to him, he gives it the stink eye and dunks it in water first. You know. Just in case. Money is his weakness. The thin man will go to sometimes embarrassing lengths to obtain it. He and Shame rarely speak.

After having dealt with involuntary time travel, mild schizophrenia, and smoking an unhealthy amount of questionable plants, James gained the ability to take the unusual in-stride most days. He likes to lord this fact over those less experienced with the other-worldly, but this doesn't mean he can't be surprised or frightened. He's pretty cowardly when it comes to things he can't shoot. He has a grudging respect for the fair folk and will even suck up to magic users to ensure his safety.

So what's James like when he ISN'T dealing with the other-world and stealing packs of gum from the Dollar Store? He's a bit like a cat. He keeps to himself and roams the backroads and pig paths and comes home when it's time to eat. When there's no fence-riding to do, he watches Nick at Night on tv and bakes or whittles decorative signs and small animals. He'll hang around people when there's a chance of getting something out of them or maybe just so he can watch them make mouth words at each other. ITS NOT THAT HE'S LONELY AND SOCIALLY AWKWARD OR ANYTHING SOB.

JW isn't terribly good at talking to people outside of ranting, small talk or making sales. His temper tends to get the better of him and he gets frustrated easily. The people he gets along with best are either those he can intimidate or have enough patience for the both of them.

James does surprisingly well with children though. He's ashamed of his incomplete education and doesn't feel nearly as pressured to sound 'smart' around them. He's still a kid at heart.

He also often prefers the company of women. He likes teasing them and isn't immune to the need to show off and attempt to flirt. Unfortunatley this flirting usually manifests in hanging around like a creeper or teasing and it doesn't get him very far. JW is pretty shameless when it comes to being doted on by old ladies.

Though he favors them, in JW's eyes, men and women are equal and if he thinks you deserve a good punch in the nose, he'll give you one no matter what's between your legs. He only makes exceptions for old people and little kids.

Though his moral compass is a bit wobbly (lying, cheating, stealing, more lying, leading people he doesn't like into fae-infested groves so that they end up on the receiving end of their pranks instead of him) he's not the sort to go out of his way to be cruel. He still smokes marijuana (or anything similar he can find) to help stomach pains, but will judge anybody with a scowl if he sees them drinking. James Walter is not a terribly good man, but he's not a bad man either. That's what is most important.


TL:DR- Just imagine a scraggly barn cat that likes Gilligan's Island, long naps, and laying on the stairs so that you trip over it and fall.

World Information:

JW's setting is sort of your run-of-the-mill Earth with hidden supernatural things that have some kind of magnetic attraction to main characters. It's sort of a monster-of-the-week kind of setting for a series of short stories I'm working on. As of right now there are no real history differences between our own world and the Earth JW is from. I may eventually decide that some famous figure like Elvis was actually a unicorn or something, but that doesn't really matter in the long run.

There are three classes of supernatural being: undead, fae, and monsters. Undead contains everything from ghosts to vengeful 'demons' to homebrew necromancy projects. Fae are kind of that weird blurry space between creature and spirit and they don't even give a damn. They are unstable, free-roaming, and snobby. Don't mess with them. Monsters are simply creatures bound by biology that haven't been discovered or have fallen off the radar. They're the rarest.

Other dimensions exist and if you know where the thin places are you can pass between them. Like the layers in an onion, there are infinite dimensions circling the main 'base' dimension the stories take place in. Some are just blurry in-between places. It's possible to slip out of the world behind a gas station in Tennessee and pop out of some lady's bathroom in China. However you must know where the roads are. Otherwise, you might just wind up somewhere in the vacuum of space and promptly turn inside out. Some dimensions are exactly the same as Earth except you, dear reader, you actually play the saxophone. Or if you already play the sax, you're a belly dancer. Or maybe a rabbit.

There are three notable dimensions that cluster close to the base-world and make up something called The Memory Dogma: The Attic, The Underbed, and The Basement. They are guarded by three horses: Lost, Forgotten, and False. The memories of man collect here and sort of form a 'mindscape' for Earth as a whole. Some think fae are formed from this place but nobody knows.

One unique feature of this setting is that every single sentient being capable of reasoning between right and wrong has something called a Mindscape. This is a world that exists inside the individual's head and is populated by manifestations of facets of their personality. The happenings and appearance and even the functionality of this little world reflect what has happened to the character. Everyone's is different and VERY rarely do people even know theirs exists. JW has had brief brushes with his since he did some involuntary dimension hopping, but doesn't really understand it. He just knows there's an annoying trap-mouthed man in his head.

History:
JW was born around 1950 in rural Tennessee. His family mostly got on with the help of his mother's parents. When his mother contracted pneumonia and died suddenly (heart enlargement) his father fell into a guilt-driven depression and drinking habit which set off the schizophrenia that his own father had suffered from. He grew abusive and JW was taken away from him to live with his grandfather on his mother's side at the age of six or seven. JW lived with him and learned farm work until he was 14. After the death of his grandfather he was placed back with his father who had deteriorated greatly. JW was a sheltered kid and didn't know to look for help. He was pulled out of school after failing tenth grade and kept secluded from people.

He left his father's home at 18 after a violent fight and took his grandfather's horse to a different town. There he fell in with a Mexican-American family after making friends with the oldest son, Horas Valentine. They unofficially adopted him and repaired the damage that had been done to him as best they could. He was fed, clothed, given a role in the family, and spoiled just a little bit. He grew up along side Horas and the two of them did everything together, including sharing an apartment and working at the same deli. They were like Timon and Pumba if Timon and Pumba smoked weed and occasionally vandalized buildings.

JW's usage soon turned into an addiction and the abuse of this drug caused his hereditary schizophrenia to surface. He did not receive any kind of treatment for this because he and his friends wrote it off as bad reactions to the drug. Horas and his girlfriend made a lame attempt at weaning him off of it.

In 1974, JW was startled into an episode by his first girlfriend who was wearing a mask. He mistook her for a dog and stabbed her to death. After realizing what had happened, JW fled the town on horseback. He urged the horse over a poorly built wooden bridge that crossed a river. The horse fell through and sent both of them into the water. Or in JW's case, into a time vortex.

He spent several years in a blurry in-between place that he has little recollection of.

When he awoke, he had found himself mysteriously transported to the year 2007 on the outskirts of a tiny Mississippi retirement town called Hawksaw where he proceeded to confess to murder. Nobody believed him. He spent some time in the town as the only homeless person before eventually being entered back into the system and bounced around between church-sponsored homes and various jobs. Finally he was diagnosed with schizophrenia but lacked the funds to treat it.

He was placed in a historical town house and made its grounds keeper. THEN SPOOKY SHENANIGANS HAPPENED.

What happened was, once the town had shoved him off on taking care of the historic house (good Christian duty and all that) he started taking things down out of the attic and the other rooms to sell. He couldn't hold a job until his medication was established, so it was really his only way to make money. He wound up nearly gutting the house over the course of a couple of weeks. This got the attention of a creature that lived in the walls named Deuteronomy and she was like "AW HELL NAW" because the first thing she thought of when she noticed almost everything missing was that the house was going to be demolished.

Her story was that the Old Man who lived in the house before JW made her to be a companion. He was lonely and nobody in town wanted anything to do with him because he wasn't exactly stealthy about hiding all the 'weird' ritual stuff he did. Truth was he was in a similar self-appointed position to what JW winds up in at the end of the story. Deuteronomy was a sort of homebrew necromancy project made out of various animal corpses (mostly canine) that the Old Man taught a little magic to. Eventually the Old Man committed suicide with a ritual that left all kinds of ominous looking burns all over his room so when somebody came to investigate, a young Sheriff Bugle was called in to see the mess.

This is the reason he was so dead set on finding JW to either be crazy or a liar when he showed up and confessed to a murder that took place thirty years ago and over seventy miles away because he didn't want any more weird stuff in Hawksaw. He almost didn't agree to let JW live in the old guy's house.

Back to present-day, Deuteronomy decides she's going to scare this stranger out of her house so she does her best to appear around corners and be spooky-like. He calls somebody to help look for any holes that a dog could have gotten through but there are none. He's written off and left to deal with it on his own so he ignores her in hopes that it really is just a hiccup. Not fond of being ignored, Deuteronomy attacks him in his bed. During the fight, she attempts to place a curse over his eyes that will show him only horrible visions because her spite had grown so much. Just killing him would have been taking the easy way out. She didn't get a clear swipe at his face and hadn't practiced any kind of magic in over thirty years, so the curse wound up kind of wonky.

He left the house for medical attention and when he returns, Deuteronomy is absolutely gobsmacked that he would come back at all. She descends into the bottom basement of the house to ask the help of a creature that the Old Man made before her, back when he was angry about the stares he got for his thankless job. She releases the monster and tries to strike up a deal with it in order to destroy JW for good, but the monster is like "HAHA THAT'S CUTE, BYE BITCH" and takes off to fulfill the duty it had been created with--basically to destroy anybody that got in its way.

Deuteronomy has a pretty red face under all that fur at this point because if it gets out that there's a horrible creature running around in town, they'll bulldoze the house faster than a golf coarse stamps out a fire ant hill. She confronts JW a second time and begs for his help. It comes to light that there was a misunderstanding and that if JW just stops the monster before too much attention is turned on the house, she'll let him live there and not bother him. All JW ever wanted was a home that was his where nobody would bother him or evict so it sounds like a pretty good deal. For a deal being made with a reanimated wolf corpse. Shotgun in hand, he and Deuteronomy take to the streets. Unfortunately, the monster already frightened a few people and has dragged a police deputy through a windshield by the time they find it. So the secret's kind of out.

Determined to still have a place to live, JW keeps up his end of the bargain by shooting the monster a few times, then trapping it in a family's garage before setting the whole thing on fire. In the end, the monster is pretty dead and even though people are like 'oh no there's a Weird Guy again and it's that guy we helped' JW tells them that so long as they keep him healthy, he'll do whatever he can to keep them from having to deal with weird stuff. It's a sort-of-but-not-really hostage situation that will eventually turn into a self-appointed duty on JW's part.

In the beginning, he's grouchy toward the town and treats them like a bunch of thankless chickens with their heads cut off. His pull point is drifting toward the end of this resentment. He doesn't want to admit to himself that he's grown to like and feel responsible for the town.

In return for housing and health care (over half co-payment for his medication), he keeps watch over Hawksaw. JW keeps nosy people out of the little retirement town and finally has a place to call his very own after being hot-potatoe'd around for so long.

Needless to say, the entire ordeal made him pretty cranky and skittish.

Present-day JW (2009-10ish) is still doing this, though he's got quite a few adventures under his belt.

GAME IMPORT:

With permission from Fee, JW will be bringing over his memories from both Es War Einmal and Holloways Keep. These are both games set in medieval-type settings with low tech. Being dumped from one world to the next twice now has made JW sort of 'genre savy' but also grumpy as all get out. I think this will spark his interaction with the others in the setting and will also make him curious about what has been causing these weird 'hops'. He spent a collective three IC months in these other worlds.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

STRENGTHS
-JW is a very convincing liar most of the time
-finding ways to do stuff faster with less effort and sometimes duct tape
-loyal once befriended. He'll stab a guy for you, man. Right in the face.
-good at saving money
-not half bad at killing monsters.

WEAKNESSES
-thanks to the ghoul eye, he can also be possessed by spirits as easily as he can see them.
-only possesses beginner driving skills.
-the ghoul eye also murders his depth perception.
-has eaten live snakes for money and will probably do it again
-poor sense of tact
-not good at making decisions under pressure
-physically weak

MEDICAL NOTE- JW suffers from schizophrenia. His symptoms are mild even when not medicated, but are exhausting to deal with day after day. These symptoms are amplified by his drug use. He exhibits hallucinations (detailed below), ritualism going down stairs, paranoia concerning the mail, and a singular delusion that has caused an eating disorder.

Audio Hallucinations: Hearing voices not unlike a talk radio station being left on in another room, crackling sounds like paper packaging, barking or whining dogs, thumps, cars in the driveway, the voices of familiar people calling his name, door chimes, locks or door latches coming undone.

Visual Hallucinations: Text in books and woodgrain on furniture will 'jiggle', doorknobs and handles are offset a few inches from where they actually exist, doorways feel shorter than they actually are, reflections and small shadows caused by glass or tree branches can be mistaken for insects or mice, crumbs or bits of dirt where there aren't any, etc...

JW rarely hallucinates full figures. The closest he usually comes is having trouble recalling conversations or events because he was seeing somebody else's face in place of the person's he was actually with.

Abilities:

MUNDANE SKILLS

-carpentry
-baking
-gardening
-wilderness survival
-ice skating
-horseback riding

SUPERNATURAL SKILLS

Ghoul Eye- JW's left eye is cursed. It's sickly and yellow and bares a cut that refuses to heal, but can also see spirits when others cannot. He also tends to get nosebleeds in the presence of ghosts which is a messy, annoying alternate way of detecting them.

First Person:

_{[The feed opens to blackness. The blackness. The edge of the world stretches on and on and anybody who hasn't seen the edge of the world might think that the video was defective until a hand comes into the frame.]}

So I found this bullshit. Check it out.

_{[The hand turns over to reveal a small stone and the video shakes as JW hurls the rock as hard and as far as he can into the nothing. Then he waits. And waits.]}

Nothin'. There's nothin' out there, man. I sure as hell aint stickin' my head over the edge, but I think we're either an island or up against some kinda intergalactic curtain.

Am I just high?

Third Person:

It had happened again.

James E. Walter sat in the very back of the train car. He had slid down so far that only a pair of narrowed, mismatched eyes were peering over the backrest in front of him and his behind was hanging off the seat. He dared somebody, anybody to walk through that door and into the full brunt of his glare. His hands were busy unbuttoning and rebuttnoning the top three buttons on his overshirt. His knuckles had worked themselves white.

One minute you're bitching about robots, the next you're on the crazy train. Oh, boy.

When was he going to learn to just keep his mouth shut and count his blessings? He stopped pouting at the car door long enough to look out the window. It was hard to make out exactly what kind of countryside he was passing through and the jostling car wasn't doing a thing for his stomach. He actually kind of missed that robot. JW stopped fiddling with his shirt and thatched his hands together over his stomach. Nobody was around to hear the tiny worried sound that worked its way out of his nose. It had been a while since he'd had any kind of medicine, but he couldn't even pretend this was a side effect to make himself feel better. He was off on one of those A-words again. Adventures. Ugh.

Blessings. Right. Let's see.... He was on a train. A train was technology. Wherever he was going probably had toilets. Real ones that flushed. That was something to look forward to, right? He reached up to scratch at the base of one of his antlers. They had arched backward to end in three points each but were still covered in thick, living velvet. It was hard to keep from bumping them against the back wall of the train car. The last thing he needed was to break one on a trip he didn't know the duration of.

JW leaned a little and squinted back down the long row. "Jesus, isn't there supposed to be a meal served on these things? Is that just for airplanes? Man..."