Burning the Sand (Red Dead RP; OOC; OPEN)

[Rudaslavia]

What the hell. This can't die.

[Treneria]

I've had RPs die on me before but this is a new record, before I was even allowed in.

[Inquilabstan]

I shall be posting later tonight.

[Mormak]

What is it and Cylarn roleplays just dying in the dirt.

[Lunas Legion]

What is it and Cylarn roleplays just dying in the dirt.

Dunno. It's like a curse, because they're all good ideas, normally with a good core of RPers, but they just die for some reason. I don't think I can remember one than lasted longer than 10 IC pages.

[Communists for the people]

Is this dead?

[Inquilabstan]

Sorry for the wait. I've been having power failures like crazy these last few days.

[Cylarn]

I apologize profusely for not being too active, as I have been busy recently. I will make an effort to get the RP moving again, though I would like for the criminal groups to become more active and mingle with one another.

I'll skip us to the next morning.

[Treneria]

Could we possibly interact?

Yeah, 'course.

---

NOTE: Ranches and cowboys? My stock and trade. I swear, I didn't steal your idea of a French character. Just noticed after I started making the app.

Name: Francis D. Boudeux

Age: Twenty-five.

Gender: Male.

Appearance: [Will fill in later. Imagine a tall man of average weight with a slight muscular tone]

Voice: Red Harlow, from the original game.

Identifying Traits and/or Features: Several scars. He has the heart and spirit of a hardworker. One of the few that will never give up without a fight.

Personality: Boudeux is straight to the point. A life on the range has had molded and formed his character. He does things the way he sees fit; it's been that way since he took control of his parents' ranch. Whenever the almighty decides that either he or his ranch shall die off, that'll be the day he goes down; whether that means fighting off the oil companies, the outlaws, or the elements. Despite his hardened nature towards those who want to force him from his land, he's generally a nice guy. He gets along with most people. He shakes hands and looks people in the eye.

Skills: Thanks to the ranch and range, Boudeux has been graced with a large set of skills that have and will continue to come in use at any given time. These range from various physical advantages to abilities to fulfil survival requirements.

Through the ranch Boudeux has learned animal husbandry. He has also gained certain skills with animal communication. He knows how to work around animals. Boudeux can also treat animal wounds and illnesses if needed. One of the most important skills that came with his work in today’s world is the mechanical aspect of his career. With only a wrench he can fix just about any vehicle. He also knows how to assemble and reassemble certain things in varying types of engines. Francis is able to tear apart and reassemble just about any vehicle, as well as fix any issue they may encounter.

On top of the experience gained from working on the ranch, Boudeux has learned a lot through various hobbies and pastimes that he took on whilst living on the homestead. These include firearms experience; whether it be shooting precision, identification, or fixing firearms. Just like vehicles, he can break apart and put almost any piece of weaponry back together; minus heavy machine guns and artillery pieces. He also knows how to track and trap animals and people. He has little experience living without shelter however, so his days trapped in the wilderness would be limited.

Weaknesses:[b] A rather major weakness he holds is his stubbornness. Boudeux does things the way he wants and very rarely lets anyone make decisions for him. Whether he’s wrong, he’s right in his mind.

Due to his stubbornness, he is unable to give up. This sometimes backfires on him, however.



[b]Birthplace: Hennigan’s Stead

Nationality: French-American

Ethnicity: Caucasian.

Religion: Christianity

Affiliation: Operates with a gang of fellow ranchers and cowboys.

Occupation: Rancher

Motivations: To keep the ranch alive, not to give into the corporations, and to see his ranch prosper.

Family: Mother and father, as well as a couple of brothers and sisters. Extended family lives away from the ranch.

Background: Boudeux doesn’t have much to his background. He was born into a ranching family in Hennigan’s Stead. They lived away from the MacFarlane Ranch, but had plenty of land to themselves to raise a large head of cattle. The ranch itself was formed in the 1880’s by a former Confederate Colonel that survived the Civil War; Boudeux’s great granddad. Boudeux started out as simply enjoying his simple life on the range. However when he came to be in his late-teens, he discovered a fond love for the ranch and began to take it head on. Due to his father having some health issues, it was handed down to Boudeux at a young age. Boudeux took the ranch head on and has since been leading it.

On a personal level, Boudeux was born and raised to be a cowboy. His parents taught him morals and manners; rights and wrongs. At the same time, however, due to the wild days of his youth, as well as the outlaws he group up with and around, Boudeux has a certain lack of authority for higher forms of government. He’s committed crime before and would be willing to go back if it provided means for survival.

Sorry if it seems lackey, I struggled with this one and writers block.

[Cylarn]

Yeah, 'course.

---

NOTE: Ranches and cowboys? My stock and trade. I swear, I didn't steal your idea of a French character. Just noticed after I started making the app.

Name: Francis D. Boudeux

Age: Twenty-five.

Gender: Male.

Appearance: [Will fill in later. Imagine a tall man of average weight with a slight muscular tone]

Voice: Red Harlow, from the original game.

Identifying Traits and/or Features: Several scars. He has the heart and spirit of a hardworker. One of the few that will never give up without a fight.

Personality: Boudeux is straight to the point. A life on the range has had molded and formed his character. He does things the way he sees fit; it's been that way since he took control of his parents' ranch. Whenever the almighty decides that either he or his ranch shall die off, that'll be the day he goes down; whether that means fighting off the oil companies, the outlaws, or the elements. Despite his hardened nature towards those who want to force him from his land, he's generally a nice guy. He gets along with most people. He shakes hands and looks people in the eye.

Skills: Thanks to the ranch and range, Boudeux has been graced with a large set of skills that have and will continue to come in use at any given time. These range from various physical advantages to abilities to fulfil survival requirements.

Through the ranch Boudeux has learned animal husbandry. He has also gained certain skills with animal communication. He knows how to work around animals. Boudeux can also treat animal wounds and illnesses if needed. One of the most important skills that came with his work in today’s world is the mechanical aspect of his career. With only a wrench he can fix just about any vehicle. He also knows how to assemble and reassemble certain things in varying types of engines. Francis is able to tear apart and reassemble just about any vehicle, as well as fix any issue they may encounter.

On top of the experience gained from working on the ranch, Boudeux has learned a lot through various hobbies and pastimes that he took on whilst living on the homestead. These include firearms experience; whether it be shooting precision, identification, or fixing firearms. Just like vehicles, he can break apart and put almost any piece of weaponry back together; minus heavy machine guns and artillery pieces. He also knows how to track and trap animals and people. He has little experience living without shelter however, so his days trapped in the wilderness would be limited.

Weaknesses:[b] A rather major weakness he holds is his stubbornness. Boudeux does things the way he wants and very rarely lets anyone make decisions for him. Whether he’s wrong, he’s right in his mind.

Due to his stubbornness, he is unable to give up. This sometimes backfires on him, however.



[b]Birthplace: Hennigan’s Stead

Nationality: French-American

Ethnicity: Caucasian.

Religion: Christianity

Affiliation: Operates with a gang of fellow ranchers and cowboys.

Occupation: Rancher

Motivations: To keep the ranch alive, not to give into the corporations, and to see his ranch prosper.

Family: Mother and father, as well as a couple of brothers and sisters. Extended family lives away from the ranch.

Background: Boudeux doesn’t have much to his background. He was born into a ranching family in Hennigan’s Stead. They lived away from the MacFarlane Ranch, but had plenty of land to themselves to raise a large head of cattle. The ranch itself was formed in the 1880’s by a former Confederate Colonel that survived the Civil War; Boudeux’s great granddad. Boudeux started out as simply enjoying his simple life on the range. However when he came to be in his late-teens, he discovered a fond love for the ranch and began to take it head on. Due to his father having some health issues, it was handed down to Boudeux at a young age. Boudeux took the ranch head on and has since been leading it.

On a personal level, Boudeux was born and raised to be a cowboy. His parents taught him morals and manners; rights and wrongs. At the same time, however, due to the wild days of his youth, as well as the outlaws he group up with and around, Boudeux has a certain lack of authority for higher forms of government. He’s committed crime before and would be willing to go back if it provided means for survival.

Sorry if it seems lackey, I struggled with this one and writers block.

Already approved, I thought.

[United World Order]

Working on a post right now. Should be up soon.

[Jamessonia]

Is this going to die soon, do you think? I'm interested.

[Reverend Norv]

Name: Jeremy Crozier

Age: 42

Gender: Male

Appearance:

Jeremy is a distinctly average-looking man. He stands slightly under six feet tall, and is trimly built; while not obviously muscular, in actual fact Jeremy is extremely strong. He wears a variety of clothing, but typically favors neatly tailored, conservative three-piece suits and silk ties under a long overcoat of dark brown leather.

Jeremy’s face is blandly handsome, thoroughly forgettable; his hair is a largely colorless brown, thinning slightly on top, greying at the temples. But the eyes – the eyes are a unique grey-blue color, like honed steel, and they are hard and flat and reflective and inhuman. Emotion never touches them, no matter how agile Jeremy’s face may be, or how gruesome the works of his hands may become. Those are the eyes of a killer.

Voice: Who else?

Identifying Traits and/or Features:

Largely, Jeremy Crozier is remarkable for his adaptability: he seems like a different man to each person who encounters him, for Jeremy reads most people like so many open books and then reshapes himself to conform to their expectations and insecurities. In another life, he would have made a fantastic actor. Thus, very few character traits remain consistently true for Jeremy.

Nevertheless, certain habits are consistent. One is neatness; Jeremy Crozier does not like his space or his person being disrupted. He dresses precisely, and keeps his quarters spotless; frequently, he will half-unconsciously adjust objects around him in order to tidy up his environment. Another such trait is cleanliness; Jeremy neither drinks nor smokes, and he always smells of soap. On the whole, however, any two people who meet Jeremy will usually walk away with very different ideas of who he is.

Physically, there are certain distinguishing features. Jeremy is rarely without his long coat of dark brown leather; on the rare occasions when one sees him shirtless, he is revealed to be heavily scarred. Typically, Jeremy speaks with his parents’ soft Southern drawl, and when he is very much at his ease, he may smile a genuine smile – a swift, flickering thing that bares his teeth and never reaches his eyes. The expression makes most people think of snakes, and sharks, and skinning knives.

Personality:

Jeremy Crozier is a highly intelligent psychopath. The definition of this term is crucial to understanding Jeremy. His brain simply does not work like the brains of most other human beings. Jeremy is immune to stress and fear; he recognizes risk and danger, but they do not alarm him. His self-confidence is boundless; he never feels socially awkward or out of his depth; he never feels worried or anxious. Such feelings simply do not exist for him.

Similarly, Jeremy lacks socially imposed inhibitions that most of us take for granted. He understands social rules, and typically obeys them, but he would not actually be troubled by gross violations of social norms. The result of this is that Jeremy has the capacity, whenever he so desires, to step entirely outside the boundaries of what society considers normal and act based entirely on what serves his own interests.

Most importantly of all, Jeremy is entirely incapable of empathy. As far as he is concerned, he is the only actual human being on the planet; everyone else is just an animal, useful for some purposes, but never to be loved or mourned. He is cruel, but not sadistic; sadism requires recognition of the victim’s existence as a human being. Rather, Jeremy is utterly dedicated to his own interests, to the exclusion of all else. He does not care about the law; why should a man be bound by the laws of insects? And so Jeremy will kill, or torture, or seduce, or persuade, with utter self-confidence and without the slightest flicker of fear or remorse.

Take all of this and combine it with a genius-level intellect trained by the nation’s finest universities, and what you get is a man who can do practically anything; he is bound only by the limitations of his mind and body, rather than by conscience or fear or unconscious acceptance of social norms. This is what passes for Jeremy Crozier’s personality: a soulless creature of vast ability and untrammelled power, that looks out through Jeremy’s empty grey eyes, and speaks with utter charm and confidence, and – once in a very long while – smiles.

Skills:

While he is not primarily a combatant, Jeremy Crozier’s upbringing makes him a formidable fighter. Since his early days hunting varmints in the desolate plains of Gaptooth Ridge, Jeremy’s skill with firearms has been honed by the US Army, and then by the CIA, to truly impressive levels; he is capable of rapid, accurate fire with a wide variety of Western and Warsaw Pact small arms. Still more impressive is Jeremy’s ability at hand-to-hand combat. His immunity to fear and stress means that Jeremy does not react to pain, and his decades of intensive training in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat techniques makes him a fluid killing machine with knives, blunt weapons, or his bare hands.

From his childhood, Jeremy retains some skill in the saddle of a horse, and a great deal more skill at living off the land; he once went six months in Cambodia without resupply. He has a deep and intimate knowledge of poisonous plants and animals, in the Southwest and beyond. And Jeremy also has more modern skills: the CIA made him a highly competent driver, capable of managing a car at high speeds and evading pursuers.

Jeremy Crozier has a genius-level analytical intellect, and the natural strength of his mind has been tempered by lifelong education. He is a brilliant chess player, and – in life as in the game – is always thinking three moves ahead, weighing the odds of possible outcomes. He speaks English, Spanish, Red Wolf, Russian, Chinese, and Vietnamese; it typically takes him less than a year to reach functional fluency in a new language. Jeremy also has a scholarly streak, with the result that he has a vast array of knowledge – some of it obviously useful, much of it merely trivia – at his fingertips. This knowledge runs especially deep in the fields of psychology and chemistry, in which he has degrees from Harvard.

Impressive as Jeremy’s innate abilities are, a lifetime spent in the face of danger have given him additional, highly specific skills. The Army in Korea gave him a solid grounding in firearms skills, hand-to-hand combat, and small-unit tactics. The CIA drilled those skills to exceptional levels, and combined them with parachute training, instruction (and abundant Southeast Asian firsthand experience) in irregular warfare and urban combat, and training in the application and resistance of torture (Jeremy’s immunity to fear and lack of empathy made him excel on both sides of the knife). As a CIA agent, Jeremy also was trained how to catch a spy, and how to avoid being caught himself. The result is a solid knowledge of police investigation and interrogation techniques, criminal psychology lessons, combat tactics, and negotiation strategies. Jeremy can apply those tools and evade them with equal ease.

Though he is slightly past his physical prime, Jeremy Crozier is still remarkably fit for a man of his age who has lived as hard a life as he has done. He runs five miles daily, and boxes every other day; this allows him to maintain great strength for his quite average size. More strikingly, Jeremy is capable of immense speed in combat, a quality boosted by his complete, ruthless confidence. Most people, even experienced soldiers, subconsciously pause for a fraction of a second before they act, a moment in which they decide what they are going to do. Jeremy, immune to stress, lacks that moment – and so he is capable of acting with an almost inhuman speed.

Finally, Jeremy Carlisle is, like many psychopaths, deeply perceptive. He reads people like open books, discerning from their words and body language alike what their hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities are. Then, Jeremy Carlisle shapes his interactions with them to play on those emotional weaknesses, making himself either the most charming man you could ever hope to meet or your worst nightmare, tailored to your darkest fears. Jeremy almost always knows what anyone in contact with him is thinking, what they are going to do next. His capacity for manipulation is utterly vast.

Weaknesses:

Jeremy’s great flaw is the flaw of all psychopaths: ego. His belief that he is the only “real” person in the world naturally gives rise to a belief that everyone else is inherently inferior to him: weak and stupid. This can lead him, for all his perspicacity, to underestimate his enemies. Equally, it causes Jeremy to believe that he will never be caught, that he never makes mistakes. In a certain sense, this attitude has some basis in reality: Jeremy’s soullessly clinical mindset means that he very rarely does make mistakes. But when he does slip up, the grotesque narcissism of the psychopath makes it very difficult for Jeremy to deal with the consequences.

Jeremy’s other weakness is physical. Though he is in outstanding physical condition, he carries a number of wounds that will never be fully healed. A bullet collapsed his lower left lung, and his cardiovascular capacity – despite constant running – has never fully recovered. His right knee was broken twice, and responds to damp or injury or excessive stress with collapse and blinding pain. Three of his fingers were smashed with a hammer during interrogation in Cambodia, and his fine motor skills with his right hand are limited as a result. In short, Jeremy Crozier’s body has been broken many, many times, and while he has no obvious handicaps, he has lived with the consequences of that damage ever since.

Birthplace: Rathskeller Fork, New Austin

Nationality: American

Ethnicity: Scots-Irish down to the bone, with a good dash of Cherokee and Choctaw. His family came over in the 1660s, and by the twentieth century they were identifying themselves as ethnically “American.”

Religion: Well, this is an interesting question. Jeremy will go to more or less any religious institution that it is expedient for him to attend, but he doesn’t consciously belong to any religious community; a man does not worship with roaches, after all. But he has a strange kind of religion of his own; he is certain that God exists, and that God created him and made him unique and powerful in order to keep God company. He thinks of God as a father in a very literal sense – and sons, eventually, become equal to their fathers…

Affiliation: The Society

Occupation: Crime boss, full-time; in theory he owns a restaurant in Blackwater, and he has been known actually to prepare gourmet meals there from time to time.

Motivations:

Jeremy’s long-term goal is to set up an exclusive network of secure lines of transport across the Mexican border; he understands that any organization that can establish a monopoly on illegal cross-border trafficking will rapidly become the most powerful crime syndicate in America, capable of holding the world’s largest market for drugs and prostitution hostage by cutting off its supply of dope and whores. Such an organization would be more powerful than the Mafia or the cartels, and as powerful as most state governments. Jeremy Crozier wants to run that organization.

Why does he want that? Because he believes that he deserves it, essentially. Because power – the ability to manipulate, to inflict pain, to take life or to give it – amuses him, and serves as an exercise of his immense mental powers. Because he thinks that God put him on earth, a wolf among sheep, and it would be unnatural for him not to take everything that he can. Because, ultimately, it is in his nature. And Jeremy knows it.

Family: His parents are dead, his siblings are lowlifes and dirt farmers in Gaptooth Ridge. They think that Jeremy is dead, and he is entirely happy to allow them to continue to believe this.

Background:

Jeremy Crozier was born in 1934, during the darkest days of the Depression, on a tiny farm outside Rathskeller Fork. He was the third of seven children; his parents were dirt-poor Scots-Irish farmers and moonshiners from rural Kentucky who had left their homes to try to find opportunity in the West. They found poverty and starvation instead, and they lost their ties to the clan networks back home that might have supported them in those dark days. Jeremy’s parents gave him his Appalachian accent and very little else.

Instead, Jeremy’s family had begun to disintegrate before the boy was even born. His father got drunk and beat his mother. His mother got drunk and beat her children. The children beat each other. As the family’s scant funds were squandered on alcohol, the Croziers spiraled deeper and deeper into poverty. Ultimately, Jeremy found himself taking odd jobs all over the country, and surviving on river water and cactus and tortillas baked on rocks under the sun. It was during this period that Jeremy gained his skill on horseback and his deep knowledge of the wildlife of New Austin – especially of its poisonous plants and animals.

Jeremy knew from a young age that he was not like other people: he did not understand why they acted in selfless – or self-destructive – ways. Like so many intelligent psychopaths, Jeremy began to study others, to figure out why they did what they did, and in the process he gained a level of psychological insight inconceivable for most “normal” human beings. He taught himself how to fake empathy and feign fear. He worked hard in school, understanding that academic success was one way out of Rathskeller Fork. And he waited, and planned, and vivisected rabbits out in the desert to watch the hearts slowly stop beating under his hands.

In 1950, at the age of sixteen, Jeremy Crozier harvested a half-dozen castor beans from a wild plant, powdered their seeds, and put the resulting poison in his parents’ moonshine jug. Then he took twelve dollars that he had earned from odd jobs, and caught the next bus to the Army recruiting station in Armadillo, where he lied about his age and name and signed on. Less than six months later he was fighting in Korea. His family never saw him again.

During the course of the Korean War, Jeremy distinguished himself time and time again; his utter fearlessness, excellent judgment under fire, and swift intelligence made him a valuable soldier, and he soon found himself presented with a battlefield promotion to sergeant. But Jeremy was also cited repeatedly for possible violations of the rules of war. In three years of battle, Jeremy Crozier’s squad never took a single prisoner.

Both parts of Jeremy’s war record attracted the attention of the newly founded Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA mostly recruited from the Ivy League, but they knew a killer when they saw one. Jeremy was interviewed, and the Agency found him astonishingly intelligent and desperate to escape the monotony and rigid hierarchy of military life. They struck a deal: the CIA would send Jeremy to Harvard, and Jeremy would work for them in return.

And so it went. Jeremy graduated in Harvard in just three years, with two degrees – psychology and chemistry – both cum laude. It was an almost unheard-of academic achievement, and while Jeremy’s peers all remembered the young veteran – brilliant, charming, charisma you could cut with a knife – no one seemed to know anything more about him. He kept himself to himself, they concluded, and moved on.

In the meantime, the CIA was forming Jeremy into a perfect weapon, shuttling him back and forth across the country on secret training missions. He learned how to find a spy, and how to escape even the most comprehensive of police searches. He learned how to cover his tracks, turn dirty money clean, kill a man behind a dozen layers of security. He learned how to lead a team of elite soldiers behind enemy lines, how to live off the land for months, how to kill in seconds with a gun or a knife or a table leg or his bare hands. He learned how to torture, and resist torture; how to play on a man’s fears and insecurities to make him follow orders while thinking that it was his idea; how to use people, and when to kill them before they became a liability. Jeremy excelled at all of it. He was, one training officer recalled, “the most dedicated, intuitive, and soulless killer I have ever seen.”

Soon enough, Jeremy would get the chance to prove it. From 1963 to 1973, Jeremy was assigned to the CIA’s operational branch in Southeast Asia. Long before American combat troops arrived in Vietnam, Jeremy was stalking Viet Minh commanders through the jungle, and hunting down Communist agents in the winding streets of Saigon. He was everywhere: North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, northern Thailand. He built up a vast web of contacts, playing on each man’s weakness: fear, lust, pride, insecurity, loneliness. He saw Hue City burn, and called in illegal airstrikes in Cambodia. He committed every crime imaginable, though never for sport alone. Three times, he was captured and tortured. Once, he was rescued; the other two times, he escaped. He was shot, stabbed, burned, beaten, nearly drowned, infected with malaria and dengue fever and sleeping sickness. He survived it all, though sometimes not by much. By the time Jeremy Crozier left Southeast Asia in 1973, the CIA was almost as terrified of him as the Viet Cong. They had seen what he was capable of, in that place where the normal rules of civilization ceased to apply. Jeremy saw that too – and he swore never again to play by the rules of the insects with whom he shared the world.

In the course of his time in Southeast Asia, Jeremy had built up a substantial fortune in heroin and gold, extorted and stolen from a wide variety of sources. In ’73, the CIA’s top killer resigned. The Agency was only too happy to see him go: he was a monster from a nightmare that had finally ended. Jeremy took his money and his skills, and he returned to the USA determined to build an empire. After drifting around for most of a year, Jeremy came to two conclusions: first, that crime was international, and that the man who controlled the border controlled the American underworld. And second, that the border was weakest where there was lots of empty space, and that meant New Austin.

Jeremy Crozier arrived in Blackwater in late 1974. He brought with him a small cadre of fellow CIA agents cashiered after the Vietnam War, a dozen professional killers on whom Jeremy intended to build an empire. He bought a gourmet French restaurant to serve as a money-laundering center for his operations, and began building his crime syndicate – the Society – much as he would build a militia in Cambodia. He found all of the dirty secrets of the local police and judges and politicians – the gambling debts, the mistresses and whores, the mail-order cocaine – and made sure that the men in key offices were loyal to him and him alone. He took men who had nothing – no pride, no hope, no future – and gave them training and got them off the drugs and the booze and made them his foot soldiers, who would die for the Society because it had given them a reason to live at last. He began moving women and drugs across the border, feeling out the safest crossings, walking away when the law got too close. He ran protection rackets across Great Plains and into Hennigan’s Stead, and a few gruesomely displayed bodies made the price of defiance very clear. The big players in the underworld – the Italians and Mexicans – became uncomfortably aware of the new, highly disciplined rival in their midst. But Jeremy Crozier is, as always, three steps ahead. He has a plan to destroy his enemies before they destroy him, a plan that will set in motion the process that may yet make him the most powerful man in New Austin. And that plan begins tonight.

Name: The Society

Leader: Jeremy Crozier

Second-in-Command: Joshua Poole

Type of Criminal Organization: An extremely highly disciplined, tremendously organized crime syndicate based on simple and meritocratic principles: skill and loyalty are rewarded, betrayal and incompetence are punished. It is as much a social force as anything else, a set of incentives and punishments that are known to everyone who lives around it. The Society’s interests are legal and illegal alike. At bottom, like the Mafia, it represents an alternative nation, with its own government, its own courts, its own taxes, its own services, its own inflexible laws. Under Jeremy Crozier’s hand, that second world is slowly expanding, sucking more and more people into its iron embrace.

Racket: Protection rackets (it is very unwise to operate in much of Blackwater, Great Plains, and eastern Hennigan’s Stead without paying at least something to the Society; Jeremy Crozier is inventive in his punishments for defiance.) And drug smuggling: the Society is rapidly acquiring a reputation as the most discreet and professional organization that moves drugs across the border. This may have something to do with the fact that the Society systematically fakes street-gang robberies of rival shipments. Smuggling is the Society’s key income source; it resells the drugs to local dealers at a vast profit. The Society also has rapidly growing sidelines in arms smuggling (at this point, just enough to keep the syndicate’s foot soldiers armed; the suppliers are largely US military contacts from Jeremy Crozier’s war days, selling off post-Vietnam surplus) and human trafficking (prostitutes and illegal immigrants from Mexico, who are often used as drug mules in order to kill two birds with one stone).

Number of Members: The Society has multiple levels of membership. It has about two dozen senior members, mostly ex-CIA or military, who run operations, train new members, and lead high-risk actions. Then the Society includes about 150 foot soldiers, men organized along hierarchical and military lines, who are controlled directly from La Ruche. These men guard drug shipments, take protection money payments, and enforce the Society’s rules. They do not, however, actually sell drugs or run brothels. That is the job of the Society’s associates, of whom the ever-changing roster includes hundreds of people. Associates are not actually Society members, but they are reliant on the Society in various ways – they pay it protection money, they buy drugs from it for use or resale, they employ sex workers or day laborers whom the Society smuggles over from Mexico. As a result, the Society has profound leverage over these associates – Jeremy Crozier knows where they live – and they can thus be considered as a vague, semi-reliable extension of the Society itself.

Area of Operation: Centered on Blackwater, with extensive interests throughout Great Plains; the Society is currently involved in solidifying its hold on Blackwater against the Italians and Mexicans, and at the same time is making a determined push to assert itself in the chaotic underworld of Thieves’ Landing.

Name: La Ruche Restaurant

CEO: Jeremy Crozier

Location: Downtown Blackwater

Type of Business: La Ruche (“the Beehive”) is a gourmet, very expensive French restaurant, the top dining location for Blackwater’s political and economic elite. Its sprawling wine cellars and back rooms also serve as the organizational nerve center for the whole Society, though Jeremy Crozier is far too smart to keep anything incriminating actually on the premises. Finally, La Ruche’s vast operating budget – it ships ingredients in from all over the world, and a single meal is rarely under fifty dollars (close to $200 in today’s money) – makes the restaurant a perfect money-laundering front for the Society: La Ruche’s legitimate profits are swapped with the Society’s illegal wealth to make dirty money clean.

Number of Employees: 35

[Cylarn]

Welcome aboard.

[North Paju]

For convenience of reading, please remove anything that is contained within apostrophes.


Name: Shane Shaneington Shaneson Jr.

Age: 1

Gender: Hermaphrodite

Appearance (Pictures are preferred, but not required): Imagine a really tall shane...

Voice (In the past, I have tried out a few RP immersion techniques, and for this attribute, you will select a rather famous individual, movie character, or other whose voice resembles that of your character's. Please include a URL link to the voice, so that we can all hear it and better immerse ourselves): The voice of shaaaaaaane

Identifying Traits and/or Features (No human is identical to the other; even clones are different aside from appearances. Here, you can describe certain traits or appearance features that better define your character as being another unique human being. You should list likes and dislikes here as well): Shane has a tattoo on his head that says S H A N (they ran out of ink before they blot the E on so he is on occasion seen rubbing mud on his head to make an E but didn't work last time cos the mud wasn't substantial enough)

Personality: Shane likes to be called shane. He calls everyone else Shane because he likes the name Shane.

Skills (For this section, I want at least a paragraph of material that describes what you are good at. For example, characters with a long military background might have accumulated a plethora of skills during their service. However, be realistic with your character's skills. He/she isn't some sort of super soldier): Shane is an experienced fishermen. He did want to be an astronaut but he was too overqualified. So he got into shrimping. He can be heard saying all the things you can make with shrimp, such as barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

Weaknesses (Face it; everyone has at least 2 weaknesses or attributes that degrade them. I expect at least two weaknesses, with one being a major flaw and the other being "minor." For example, a former soldier might suffer from post-traumatic stress as the result of combat, while also being a bit of a control freak. Culture can also play into this, as a character with a heavy Christian background may stereotype those of other faiths and subcultures. Physical weaknesses are also allowed):

Shane has a weakness for wood. Redwood trees scare him

Birthplace:

Shanetown, West Shaneville, USA

Nationality:

Shaneian

Ethnicity:

Black Chinese

Religion:

Shamanisn

Affiliation (Some characters may be with a law enforcement agency, or with a gang):

The Shane City Kitty Kat Claws

Occupation:

Shane dweeler

Motivations:

He has none, for he is SHAAAAAANE

Family (This is an optional area, but you may list any significant others, such as spouses, children, etc.):

Shane Sr.
Shane I
Shane II
Shane III
Shane IIII
Shane IV
Shane V
Shane VI
Shane VII
Shane VIII
Shane VIIII
And then him. Plus his brother Gilbert.


Background (Tell us about who you are. 2 paragraph minimum): All to is to know about shane is that he has a god awful beard that he wants to shave but his father won't let him. poor bugger

[Cylarn]

-snip-

Nice. A lot of things are coming into perspective now.

[North Paju]

-snip-

Nice. A lot of things are coming into perspective now.

But did I get in?!?!

[Cylarn]

-snip-

Nope.

[North Paju]

:'(

[North Paju]

Please Cylarn did i get in!?!?!?!?!? oh plzplzplzplz

[North Paju]

What is it and Cylarn roleplays just dying in the dirt.

He's a shit host.

[Frisbeeteria]

He's a shit host.

And you're *** warned for flaming ***. Nor is this the first post by you reported in the last few hours. Read the rules and Knock It Off.

[North Paju]

[Treneria]

I'll have a post up at some point, what's going on so far in the IC?

[Rudaslavia]

This is great! I'm, glad the RP is back on track! I'll get a post up ASAP!