#now that i think about it he would make an incredible strongman with a circus

[euroclydonn]

I had a friend who never went to the gym but would randomly pick me up and squat me and I just wonder what he could do with some of that Popeye spinach

[maxwell-grant]

You have done an (excelent) post on how to reinvent Batman as a Pulp Hero. Do you think you could do one to Superman as well? Or do you think it is impossible to do this with the progenitor of the Super Hero genre without transforming him in a totaly diferent character?

Well, you saying it as impossible only makes it seem ever more tempting of a challenge, but yes, it is a bit harder. I'm gonna link my Batman post here as a reference point.

Partially because Batman's a franchise I've thought extensively about for a long time in regards to what I like about it or how I'd like to approach if given the opportunity, which is not something I can really say for Superman until more recently the Big Blue to start orbiting my brain. I don't have years worth of redesigns or fan concepts saved on my galleries and files to comb through to pick and choose here, and my experience with Superman as a character is considerably different, in some aspects more deeply personal, and not really something I'd like to go into in this blog, at least not now.

Part of the reason why it's harder is also because Batman and Superman have very different relationships with their pulp inspirations. Batman was, ostensibly, a pulp character adapted to comics, a dime-a-dozen Shadow knock-off who picked up and played up diverging traits from other characters and gradually ran with them to gradually forge a unique identity. Superman right from the start was rooted in a much stronger conceptual underpinning: the Sci-Fi Superman and Alien Menace who, instead of being a tragic monster or a tyrannical villain, becomes a costumed adventurer and social crusader. Even the name Super-Man was taken from an early story of Siegel and Shuster about a telepathic villain who ends the story lamenting that he should have used his powers for the good of mankind instead of selfishness. I hesitate to call what Siegel and Shuster were doing “subversive” because that term's picked up a real negative connotation, and it's not like Siegel and Shuster were out to upend their influences (they were pulp aficionados themselves), but rather putting a more positive, new spin on them.

Which is why it also becomes a bit harder to do what I did with Batman and align Superman with some of his pulp-esque inspirations, like John Carter, Flash Gordon or Hugo Danner, without just making it "Superman but he's John Carter", "Superman but it's Flash Gordon", and "Iron Munro / Superman but everything sucks" respectively. It's harder to create a character that wouldn't feel reduntant and derivative at best, and actively contradictory to Superman at worst.

I guess if I had to come up with a "Pulp Hero Superman" take I liked, well first of all I'd have to take steps to distance it from the likes of Tom Strong or Al Ewing's Doc Thunder, those two are as good as it gets in regards to Pulp Supermen. I stipulated for Batman a "No Guns, No Murder, No Service" policy partially to distance my takes on Batman from all the "Pulp Batmen" that just add guns and murder and take Batman back to the barest of basics. Likewise, I'm adding a "No Depowered Science Hero" rule here, which means it's a take that's likely going to veer off a lot more into fantasy and probably enough tampering with Clark's character that it does risk becoming a different character.

Frankly I don't think I'm gonna succeed at doing these without just making it a new character entirely, because with Batman you can get away with just upending the character's aesthetic and setting and even origin and still keep it recognizably Bruce Wayne (in fact Batman does that all the time), which isn't really the case with Superman, who needs those to remain recognizably Superman as he goes through internal changes and character shifts. I guess what I'm gonna do here is more taking the building blocks of Superman/Clark Kent and see a couple new ways I can rearrange them to create a Pulp Superman

Perhaps something we can do is to scale back or recontextualize the "superhero" parts without diminishing Superman's role as a superpowered fantasy character.

One way we can start is by picking on that connection between Superman and the sci-fi supermen/alien monsters of pulps I mentioned earlier and play it up further, to create a Superman who's deeply, deeply alien in a way that no mild-mannered disguise or colorful outfit can really disguise, something so dramatically powerful and alien, that instead you could get tales about the kinds of ensuing changes and ripple effects this has on the world upon the The Super-Man's arrival. And for that I'm gonna have to quote @davidmann95's concept for Joshua Viers' absolutely stunning Superman redesign on the left side of the image above

The red, the goldish-orange and white, the alienness, the angelic, sculpted feeling, the halo, that innocently curious expression: it’s genuinely beautiful. Superman as a redeeming science-angel from beyond our understanding, as much past the uncanny valley of limited human comprehension as a Lovecraftian monster but tuned to the opposite key - you could spend an endless procession of human lifetimes trying and failing to understand this being, but all you��ll ever know for sure is that it is beyond you, and it knows you, and it loves you.

Superdoomsday from Earth 45, healed and transformed into the savior it was originally envisioned as? Some descendant of his, or a future of the man himself? An alien who picked up on a broadcast of Superman from Earth, and so inspired reshaped itself in his image to spread his ‘gospel’ to the stars?

Alternatively, to come back to Earth a little, many, many pulp characters and series were built off the antics and personalities of real people, celebrities getting their own magazines or serials or fictionalized takes on them, so perhaps one way to make a "pulp" take on Superman would be to emphasize a bit more of Superman's real-world roots, trends that inspired his creation directly or indirectly at the time. The Jewish strongman Sigmund Breibart and Shuster's interest in fitness culture, Harold Lloyd's comic persona, the rising "strongman" film genre in the early 20th century, actors Clark Gable and Kent Taylor that supposedly named his secret identity, Clark Kent being a socially-awkward journalist based of Siegel's own school experiences.

Maybe one start to an authentic Pulp Superman, who would still be Superman, would be to just ask the question "What if Superman was a real person and/or a celebrity, and they started making pulp magazines and serials dedicated to him? What would those look like?". You wouldn't even have to restrict it to just a story set in the 1930s, in fact you could even play around with the rise of new mediums over the decades.

This third one is a little closer to some plans I have for my own take on a Superman character, not necessarily what I would do with Superman proper but one of my ideas for a Superman analogue. Superman's a character I'll always associate strongly with childhood and childhood fantasy, and to tap into that I would emphasize the other end of the fiction that influenced Siegel and Shuster: comic strips, in their case specifically Little Nemo and Popeye.

In my case I would bring additional influences from some of the comic strips I personally grew up reading like Monica's Gang and Calvin and Hobbes, and I already talked a bit about Captain Fray in terms of how he’s a Superman character despite being a villain. I guess you could call this one "What if Superman was a public domain comic strip character, stripped of the importance of being the founding figure of a super popular genre or extended universe, and also was kind of ugly?".

He's not "Sloth from the Goonies" ugly, I swear I didn't actually have Sloth in mind when typing out this idea, I've never watched that film nor did I know until now that he actually spends the film in a Superman shirt. That's not really what I'm going for. Visually I was thinking of modeling my take on Superman heavily after Hugo from Street Fighter and his inspiration Andre the Giant, to really emphasize the “circus strongman / freak wrestler” aspect of Superman’s inspiration, particularly in regards to how Hugo’s SFIII version strikes a really great balance in making Hugo ugly and both comedic and fearsome in battle, as well as lovable and even a little dopey (without being outright stupid, like his IV self) in his victory animations and endings.

He's still Superman, he still goes on fantastical adventures to help people, he's still a deeply loving and compassionate soul whose face beams with joy and affection and who's got wonderful eyes and a great smile. It's just that this smile has a couple of mismatched stick-out teeth or some missing ones, and he's got a crooked smile some people take as smug or malicious, he’s got a strongman’s gut instead of a bodybuilder’s abs, his nose is a little busted (maybe he’s had too many crash landings), and his hair is a little wild or greasy, and he doesn't exactly have very good people skills because of how others usually react to him and, y'know, he doesn't get the kind of publicity Superman would get despite doing ostensibly the same things. He’s not deformed, he’s incredibly intelligent and capable, but in comparison to how superheroes are usually allowed to look, he might as well be Bizarro in the public eye.

It becomes a running gag that people tend to assume some nearby fireman or cop was the one who rescued the hundred orphans out of a burning building single-handedly, meanwhile he's getting accosted off-panel by police officers who think he set the building on fire, or think they can bully this weird man dressed funny. He goes to rescue old people in peril and occasionally they yell at him that they don't have any money. He doesn't get asked to lead superhero meetings or teams even though many in the community advocate for just how much he does for the world, he gets censored out of tv broadcasts or group shots (even his face is sometimes pixelated when they do show him), people invite him on talk shows and don't really let him talk or assume they got the wrong guy. He goes to rescue a woman dangling off a building, and then he gets attacked by like three different superhero teams who assume he must have kidnapped the poor damsel. He was the first superhero, he is the strongest of them all still, but he never really gets credit for it, it nor does he even want to. None of this at all stops him or deters him, except for some occasionally funny reactions.

This never really changes for him, he doesn't really earn people's approval nor does he have to, instead the stories, outside of the gags and adventures you’d expect from a comic strip, veer more towards others learning to be less judgmental and him learning ways to better approach people. He isn't any lesser than Superman just because he doesn't look like most people would want him to look and he doesn't have to look like Superman. Really I think we could use more superheroes that don’t look all so uniformly pretty.

Again, probably not a take that would work for Clark proper, but it’s one way I would take a shot at doing Superman with my own

I have other stuff in the works for this character but I'd like to keep them to better work on them for now, but yeah, these are three of my shots at developing a Pulp Superman.

Alternatively here's a fourth idea that's more pulp than all of these: Join up Nicholas Cage with Panos Cosmatos again, or whatever weird indie director he decides to pair up with next, and let them do whatever the hell they want with Superman. Give us Mandy Superman. Superman vs The Color Out of Space. Superman vs Five Nights at Freddy's. Superman’s quest to find THE LAST PIG OF KRYPTON. Anything goes.

[dapper-ships-herself]

Le Cirque des Désenchantés

Greetings one and all! I welcome you to our humble circus! Look around you at the world outside, be not fooled by the glamorous blanket they will try and throw over your heads. Out there is a cruel world of misery and despair, a place where the downtrodden find no purchase and are left under heel, it is a gem covered in grim and dust. But, must we lay down and weep over this fact? Here, in this tent, we see the world for the way it truly is, and so we add our own color! The world will not give us the luster we seek, so we shall create it for our selves! Join us on this night, where even we can create our own best of all possible worlds!

Allow me to introduce myself~ I am your ringmaster, Voltaire!

 I have been told I’m a bit of an optimist, even in the face of this cruel world. I adore this circus with my entire being, having founded it and recruited each member myself. My special ability is called Candide, and it allows me to read the mind of an individual I make eye contact with.

Now, allow me to introduce some of our members~

This man is Martin, a friend of mine since childhood. He’s not actually a performer, but he is essential to us. I suppose you could call him our strategist, he manages much of our back stage and helps keep me in check, This circus wouldn’t run nearly as smoothly without him. He’s a bit of a glass half empty kind of fellow, pragmatic through and through; I’ve tried to tell him he should lighten up a bit more for as long as I’ve known him.

Jane de la Vaudere is our fortune teller. She carries with her an aura of mystique, but she is truly warm and motherly, especially caring to those of us in this circus. Her special ability is called La Sorcière d'Ecbatane, when her left eye is covered, she can see a limited glimpse of a person’s future, and when her right eye is covered she is capable of producing a myriad of fantastic magical effects, mostly harmless shows of light and such that we use in our performances, but she does have a few trickier spells up her sleeve.

Stendhal is our master magician! As talented as he is with slight of hand, he’s an extremely shy fellow. The mask he wears is not only for the sake of his costume, it’s also a sort of security blanket for him, and he rarely takes it off. His ability is called Le Rouge et le Noir, which allows him to control playing cards.

Renee Vivien is one of our performers. She loves luxury and relaxation more than pretty much anything, and adores a good celebration. Her ability is called Le Club de l'Enfer, allowing her to summon a group of tiny devil like creatures to do her bidding.

  Gaston Leroux is a performer with us. Mysterious, quite, and aloof, those words work well to describe our precious Gaston. Be not deterred by his mannerisms and general lack of social skills, he dedicates himself in his entirety to this circus and truly cares. His ability is called Le fantôme de l'Opéra, from his body he can secrete an inky substance that he can manipulate at will, and is also able to to sprout eyes within this substance to look around an area remotely.

Rachilde is our beast tamer. Truly a gentle girl, she prefers to lead our animal performers through a kind touch rather than through whips as is traditional. Though she is very kind and gentle, she is not incapable of showing a, shall we say crueler side to herself; this rarely comes out though and only in the face of a threat to our family. Her ability is called Face à la Peur, letting her see her target’s greatest fear and then trap them in a mental space with an embodiment of that fear, the target is physically asleep until either she releases them or they somehow manage to defeat this fear.

Albert Camus acts as our clown. Many people are put off by his face and admittedly very creepy demeanor, but that’s all surface level, inside he is a caring, sweet man who simply wants to make people smile and wishes others could see his intentions better than they often do. His ability is called L'Étranger, which allows him to induce temporary memory loss upon a target, making them a complete stranger to them self for up to a day.

 Charles Baudelaire is a dancer for us. Calm and graceful in everything he does, he is quite the fan of teasing his fellow circus members, but it all comes from a place of love truly. His ability is called Les Paradis Artificiels, he can create a special powder which he blows out of his pipe and into the air, effecting the ambiance of an area, usually used to either relax people so they let down their guard, or excite them.  

 Victor Hugo is our strongman. He is the true definition of a gentle giant, and you can’ help but trust him despite his imposingly large frame. He’s an expert at controlling his incredible strength and is surprisingly dexterous with his hands, he loves to whittle wood as his hobby. His ability is called Les Misérables he is able to blanket an area in apathy, making it difficult for those within to muster up the energy to fight or even move.

And last, but certainly never the least, we have

Gillian, our star acrobat. She is a master of the aerial silks and a sight to see on the trapeze, her balance upon the tightrope leaves audiences on the edge of their seats. She has a penchant for sarcasm and mischief with a sharp smile to match; beyond that, though, she is very easy to fluster with words, the only place she’s never lost her composure is in the air. She adores our circus family more than anything, seeing it as the only thing worth truly caring about for the most part. Her ability is known as l'Essence de l'Humanité, an ability that greatly increases the strength of other abilities; it works best through physical contact, but if she puts her full concentration on an ability user and so long as she keeps that concentration and they remain within her line of sight then it will also take effect.   

Dear disillusioned, we hope to see you come around to enjoy our spectacular performance some day, where you can forget your troubles for one night and enjoy an enchanted world~

---------

So yeah, this is the french group of circus OCs for Bungou Stray Dogs I’ve been talking about for a while now! 

They are a very popular performance across Europe, though most audience members have no clue about the, hm, shadier jobs they take low-key.

These authors were chosen either because they’re famous and the first ones I thought of with the prompt of “French authors”, or they are from the decadence movement of French writing, which was a movement characterized by “self-disgust, revulsion at the world, skepticism, delight in the perverse, and belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and nature”. I thought that fit in with the theme of this being a group of people who have come together after being looked down upon, beaten by, and exposed to the darker parts of the world, they are disillusioned from seeing a perfect world. But they have also decided not to be totally jaded depressos about this, instead for the most part adopting an attitude of “yeah, lots of things suck, but we can have fun together in a little world of our own creation”, which is the circus. 

The circus is an extremely tight knit family and they all love each other dearly, all believing that they have to look out for each other since no one else will.

Story wise, I think they enter in between seasons 2 and 3 and would have their own season where they are actually the antagonists. Fyodor wants to continue to poke at the agency and try another approach at retrieving the book before he gets his own hands dirty by becoming more directly involved. So, he approaches Voltaire and tells him about a special book that can make anything come true, and that this book can be used to create the “best of all possible worlds” he so desires for his circus family. Under the guise of branching out in touring, the circus heads to Yokohama, Japan.

I have a bit of a plot worked out from there, but mostly pertaining to how the arc wraps up. This post is getting long, but I’d be happy to talk about that more later~

Anyway, please love my circus children, I worked hard on them.   

Picrews: o, o, o, o, o, o, o, o, o

[clarislam]

My Reactions To “Escape The Night, Season 3 Episode 5:”

Throwing under the cut due to spoilers!

JOEY WHERE ARE YOU GOING. At least tell them where you’re going other than the bathroom, that never works!

Arm-wrestling! GO MANNY!

Also, Ro is waaaay stronger than she looks. I was really surprised!

“We just unleashed the strongman.” OH GEEZ THAT’S NOT GOOD

Can we take a moment to appreciate that Matt tried to ward the strongman’s girlfriend away from Ro? 

NO RO AND SAFIYA

...Okay, the cop has a girlfriend. Okay...I’m Ro and Safiya, looking away while those two make out. O_O

GO MANNY AND JOEY AND MORTIMER, FREE THEM

I’m really appreciating how they’re making the codes and ferris wheels work in this episode. This has to be one of the most elaborate tricks yet!

Also loving how Safiya and Ro are distracting the cop’s girlfriend (Veronica was her name if I’m correct). 

THEY FOUND A LAZARUS COIN GUYS

asdfasdf

Can we just take a moment to note that Matt was telling the others to “find the Lazarus coin” while he was dying?

Summary of my thoughts:

The strongman test between Manny and MatPat reminded me of Season 1, Episode 5 where they had a test of three circus acts for Tim and Oli. The only differences were that Tim and Oli got to BOTH live and they were completely even on the number of acts won (out of three, both of them won one each and both failed one of them), while MatPat died and Manny lived ‘cause he got 3 out of 5 won. DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THIS LITERAL THROWBACK/PARALLEL???

I legitimately expected Joey to end up in that challenge against Manny, so I was shocked when MatPat got put in instead. RIP MatPat...I just knew, the moment he got put in that challenge, that he wasn’t making it out when going up against Manny. Manny was clearly the strongest (physically) out of everyone as seen in the first arm-wrestling challenge that episode, so for me it was a given that MatPat was going to go down.  I do find it incredibly touching that Ro and the others are committed to finding that next coin and that MatPat even encouraged them to do so while he was dying. He was so determined for everyone to get out that he did his best to encourage them to go for their best chance of getting the help they need to get out. 

Will they find another Lazarus coin next episode? Ro found ONE this time, and they just need two to open that box! Sure, they missed one last episode, but...maybe they’ll have a chance to go back to that puzzle next episode? Or have another chance at finding a different coin with another puzzle? I really, genuinely hope so. 

I really love the technical stuff going into this episode! Having the little ferris wheel control the big one, having the boxes at the jail open after punching the code in (the little and big ones), and so on. I just found that super-impressive! XD

I’m predicting it now—Colleen’s going to die next and it’ll be so MatPat can come back to life. Either that, or Colleen will die and MatPat will come back by the episode after. If no one gets resurrected, we’re only going to have one winner by the end of this season, which would be a new first ‘cause we’ve always had two winners by the end of every season so far. However...if we look at the original trailer for before this season started, there are clips of MatPat that are shown that haven’t been shown in these episodes yet. I think it indicates that he’ll come back for sure. We also saw that Colleen was being shoved into something in the trailer, or pushed towards something while she was crying in protest, so...it makes me think that she might be dying in exchange for him coming back.

What do you all think? Who do you think might die next? What about who may or may not be resurrected?

[fridays--child]

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR OCs

For Hedy, Samson, and Declan

What’s one food they absolutely refuse to eat? Like, even if they were lost in the middle of a forest and all their other belongings had been eaten by bears, they still wouldn’t eat this.

H: In general, meat, though that gets harder to avoid as rations get thinner. Any form of seafood is still off the table, she’d rather starve.

S: Nothing really. He’s lived his life in a relatively isolated farming town, so he’s learned to appreciate whatever produce they have at the time.

D: Truly, this boy is a brat and will whinge about everything. But if it’s truly disgusting, he’ll do it if you egg him on.

Are they an annoyingly cheerful morning person or a night owl who sends cryptic texts at 2am?

H: She’s not a morning person, but she can function. Has the most energy in the afternoons.

S: Annoyingly cheerful morning person, but like, lowkey. He gets that not everyone is.

D: Night owl, most productive (read, disruptive) between the hours of 2 and 4am.

What’s their favorite book? Did they cry reading it? Would they admit it?

H: She’s an obsessive reader, but rarely does a story make her cry. However, she always read and treasured the medical articles her grandfather wrote, even before she worked in the field and was too young to understand them. She has a copy of each one tucked away in a journal.

S: He’ll always feel guilty about it, but the favourite thing he’s ever read was Ave’s journal when she was younger. At barely 30, he found himself a widower with a 10 year old daughter and no idea how to process that, or talk about grief with her. He found herself reading through it to check up on her, and it broke his heart in the best way to see the childlike adoration Ave had for her mother. He’d never do that now that she’s a teenager though, he respects her boundaries and would just ask her outright if he needed to know anything. 

D: What’s a book? But really, it’d probably be the manifesto of some revolutionary, or some kind of controversial philosophy book. He’s far from stupid, he just won’t tell you about it surprisingly.

Are their last words more likely to be, “I can’t believe I let you idiots talk me into this” or “Hold my beer”?

H: “I can’t believe I let you idiots talk me into this”. Even if it was originally her idea.

S: Combination of both, depending on the situation. Most of the time he’s in serious dad/pillar of the community/world on his shoulders, but he’s also a still a relatively young man who took on a lot of responsibilities very early. The rare times he lets loose he tends to do stupid shit.

D: “Hold my beer” is basically his weekend attitude. He’s not self-aware enough to realise if someone has manipulated or convinced him to do something.

What’s their favorite scent? Do they have a memory connected to it?

H: Smokey but clean. Think peppermint and eucalyptus, with firewood.

S: Pine, and rain. Also, rose geranium. 

D: Anything that smells expensive. 

If they were the last person on Earth (or wherever they live), would they let themselves go natural, naked, and free, or stay immaculate Just In Case?

H: All natural. She rarely gets the opportunity to.

S: Not 100% immaculate, but, like, prepared? Shit’s clearly gone down if he’s the last one left, he wants to be ready for whatever it is.

D: He’d like to think he'd be naked and free, but really he’d be too busy freaking out.

As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up?

H: It changed pretty regularly. Her whole family was super academic and respected in their fields, so she’s certainly been influenced by that. But she also can be impulsive and restless, which is why she’s never stuck with anything for more than a few years.

S: It’s mentioned briefly that he enjoyed playing and teaching music, but he was never great at either. He always thought he’d move out of Morrigan’s Ranch and find something in the city, but it hadn’t happened yet. It would have to be something relatively physical though. For a patient man he cannot handle sitting still all day without going mental.

D: Ideally, a lush hedonistic creative that also had a decent inheritance. Fiscal security, minimal ‘work’, maximum pleasure.

If they joined the circus, what would their act be?

H: Some kind of magic, like firebreathing or sword swallowing.

S: General carny, behind the scenes stuff. Maybe a strongman if he had to be a performer.

D: Absolutely the showman. Centre of attention? With minimal talent on his behalf (other than charisma)? Perfect.

What do they think their worst flaw is? Would other people agree?

H: How cold she comes off to people. She never means it, she just tends to shut down and take the backseat if she’s nervous or stressed. Strangers that don’t take the time to know Hedy agrees, but anyone who’s spent more than a few days with her she’s incredibly empathetic once you understand her.

S: While he doesn’t actively hate himself for it, he desperately wishes he could provide a better life for his family and community. He also views himself as a boring old man. Most view him as a hard worker who has had a lot of shit thrown at him.

D: His need for escapism, especially as it usually involves a bottle or prescription drugs. Most view him as an unstable but friendly larrikin (does anyone outside Australia use that word?).

Do they spend vacations/trips following a perfectly planned itinerary or near-comatose in bed for 70% of it?

H: Definitely perfectly planned itinerary, but with time for leisurely naps most days.

S: Poor bloke will try to plan the perfect trip, then be so exhausted he sleeps for most of it.

D: King of going on a bender for days straight, dying for 14 hours, then resurrects himself stronger than ever.

If their wallet/purse/valuables were stolen, would they a) let it go, b) go to the police, or c) draw swords and run after the thief?

H: Draw her metaphorical sword and run after them.

S: If it’s just his, let it go. If it belongs to everyone else, it’s hell to pay for those who have sticky fingers.

D: Goes to the police even though he sorta a cop. But will embellish the story to make himself a hero later on.

What is their stance on the Pineapple on Pizza discourse?

H: No thanks.

S: Will eat whatever.

D: Will only eat the pineapple.

[storytelleratheart]

I said I would do this, so I will

Dramatis Personae from this tale of Heresy in the Dark:

Red: Red is a no nonsense redhead veteran of the Imperial Guard (the Army to which ‘casualties in the billions’ on a daily basis is… trivial) who was born on a forge world (i.e. A planet that is basically just one massive factory). Suffice to say she’s seen some shit, done some shit and been neck deep in all that shit. It’s a bit surprising that she’s only somewhat jaded. Interestingly she comes from a long line of characters made by her Player who all have names to do with the colour red. And out of all of them she may be the least promiscuous, but she’s the only one to succeed in getting laid. So good for her.

Red is notable for her skill at stabbing things to death with all manner of implements and the ability to operate a ten thousand year old weapon of mass destruction without: A, having read the manual and B, not being able to read any of the old worn buttons on the device (in an age where people don’t know the big red button means explosions).

Jebediah: Jebediah is a Witch Doctor from a ‘Feral World’, this walking, breathing stereotype has a collection of scattering bones to tell the future and is apparently a Psyker, people who are able to draw on the powers of the Immaterium to not only see the future, but warp reality to some extent through magical abilities, detect magical and daemonic entities and a variety of other powerful and undoubtedly useful skills. (In other words he’s a wizard of some kind)

Unfortunately he had an incredible streak of failing to detect psychic presences. For some time his squad mates wondered whether or not he was actually a Psyker or not. He was somewhat skilled at telling the future, but this came to everyone’s attention after he acquired some new scattering bones from the corpse of a powerful Psyker and fortune teller. Jebediah is best known for his poor luck, and the ability to barely scrape by whenever the going got tough. Also the inability to notice that the party had been transported into the warp. His rolls to detect Psychic and daemonic energy (Psyniscience).

Seriously by the time this ‘little’ adventure is done with him, there’s not a lot of this poor guy left. (Spoilers).

 Dwayne ‘The Rok’ Johnston: An Arbitrator, the closest thing the Warhammer 40,000 universe has to a Police Force. (Think of Judge Dredd, that’s the Police in the 40K universe) with a very… unique name. Dwayne IS. THE. LAW. He lives it, he breathes it and he cannot, under any circumstances tolerate Heresy, Law Breaking, Mutants, Demons or Aliens. Of all these the only one he hasn’t brutally executed in the name of mankind are aliens, because they are probably wise enough to avoid this hulking enforcer. As you can probably tell, Dwayne is very dedicated to his job, when he isn’t bringing justice to the galaxy, he’s constantly writing down case notes in one of his many notepads.

Dwayne could in many ways be described as the protagonist, especially if this was a big expensive Hollywood film, he’s the big tough guy who tends to lead from the front, and he rarely suffers as much as a scratch, coupled with his godly dice rolls and ability to move around silently in what is essentially plate armour, on top of all this he’s one potent fighter. Plus he dual wields a pair of shotguns, which were eventually modified heavily by his friendly neighbourhood Techpriest (IT guy/Mechanic) into a personalised, silenced pair of death dealing machines that carried enough rounds in an extended magazine that Dwayne only had to reload once after he had them modified. These shotguns proved to be surprisingly useful for silently dispatching heretics, somehow.

If this isn’t enough the guy is so tough he found a whip that’s essentially made of razor wire and he keeps it wrapped around his gauntlet, and isn’t worried about cutting himself on the damn thing. He also doesn’t eat on campaign, instead consisting off Cigars and a Flask of nondescript alcohol. Presumably when he isn’t on campaign he eats nails, without milk.

 Author’s note: Dwayne was not my character in this campaign. Do you honestly think I could come up with such an original name as Dwayne Johnston?

 Malice: Malice, like Jebediah was born on a Feral world and on this small, unassuming planet she was raised until a neighbouring planet decided to enslave their ‘lesser; neighbours. Malice’s life from that point onwards was as a slave until, at the age of seventeen she managed to escape. From there Malice went on a bloody revenge filled bender, favouring murdering people affiliated with the torment of her people in back alleys and wherever she could get her hands on them.

Malice was eventually recruited into the Inquisition by chance, and has since been used as a bloody, yet elegant tool.

It is important to note that she cannot in fact read. This will come up a few times.

Eventually however, Malice’s mental state and faith deteriorated as, after a fateful encounter with a Daemon, she fell into a state of being ‘murder crazy’, and the Inquisition decided her… enthusiasm would be best used elsewhere. Enter Gaius.

Author’s Note: Malice and Gaius were the characters I played during this campaign. I’ll try my best to be impartial whenever my murder-hobo children are mentioned.

 Gaius: Gaius does not feature in the very first act of the merry bands grand adventure, instead he is brought on to replace Malice who was going a bit murder loopy in the interlude. (In actual fact it was decided that we needed someone with medical and technological expertise, and could preferably read. After all we had two very potent fighters and Jebediah’s supporting role was purely centred on warpcraft.)

Gaius is, in short a very, very salty medic who hates his job and wishes he was a mechanic working on the best and greatest machines devised by man instead of patching up men and women.

Gaius is a Techpriest, which means he is one of the few people that understand how machinery works within the Imperium, albeit mostly through various hymns and religious rites that occasionally include vast quantities of incense. Gaius was born on a frontier world and despite how gifted he was, he would have been confined to that backwater planet litterally building kettles for the rest of his days if a request from a nearby warzone for a Techpriest to service military vehicles hadn’t come through his factory. Overjoyed Gaius volunteered, wanting to see the stars, instead he arrived to find he was too late and plenty of replacement Techpriests had arrived. Being the lowest ranking Tech Adept he was instead put to work in the field hospital.

Techpriests are known for their antisocial, eccentric ways. And he wasn’t trained in medicine. Naturally this arrangement didn’t go down so well at first. His bedside manners never got better but eventually he managed to reconcile with his faith by reminding himself organics were, to a degree simply inefficient (compared to the Machine God’s creations) machines.

Now Gaius can put almost anything back together, be it man, woman or machine with surprising efficiency.

And he’s not so bad at disassembling them with a sniper rifle or his kick-ass robotic prosthetic arm. Plus the Inquisition needed someone to take records of all the shit this group got up to, because so far 99% of it was too hard to believe if the evidence hadn’t obliterated half a city. So Gaius was given what was basically small camera mounted on a slender metal appendage sticking out of his back, he can control it at will and record whatever needs to be recorded, which is pretty handy. And no, he does not use it as a selfie stick, as much as his team mates would want him to.

 THE GREAT RALI: THE GREAT RALI was a circus strongman who unfortunately only appears for a short portion of the campaign as a whole. But Goddam (Emperor damn?) did this guy make an impression!

Humanity does not deserve such a great and noble champion.

 Sally: Sally is, to be blunt a Maid that the party half rescued, half kidnapped before they dragged her across the galaxy. Due to the circumstances surrounding her meeting the party, Sally turned to alcoholism and experimented with drugs, which was quite sad. We tried to make it feel better but with fellowship stats like ours, that never really worked out, instead she became increasingly distant over time. It was pretty tragic.

However Sally was not some helpless damsel, oh no, Dwayne was polite enough to give her a shotgun (but forgot to teach her how to use it) but that was no matter, for Sally never missed a shot. (In game terms, she has a Ballistic/Shooting skill of 20. Being untrained in the use of firearms she suffers a -20 to hit (in other words giving her a 0% chance to hit), but would always fire at point blank like the suicidal, drunken woman being dragged around the galaxy by a group of insane weirdos she was. Being Point Blank gave her a +30 and with that, she would always manage to hit her target, and usually do some seriously devastating damage too.

 Inquisitor Furion: No he isn’t related to Furiosa from Mad Max, in fact he’s a surprisingly average looking old guy, in a suit of baroque power armour and with the authority to destroy entire planets because he thinks there might be one illegal Psyker in the slums. Unsurprisingly Furion doesn’t take centre stage very often, he’s more concerned with the bigger picture and as great as the deeds committed by his faithful acolytes were, he only meets them in person once, to interrogate their prisoner they brought in.

He’s a top bloke by the way.

He gave us all a job at least.

 Throne Agent Vincentus: You know that guy who co-ordinates all the branches of the armed forces when they need/ are forced to co-operate? (Or in this case do whatever the Inquisition tells them to). Well that’s Vincentus. This guy is not amused, if you flawlessly rescue the governor of an entire planet, Vincentus will complain you didn’t rescue a second one while you’re at it. Prone to sighing over the radio while marking down whatever crazed story Dwayne feeds him about the mission’s current status. Vincentus was also responsible for organising all the transport and support the party received over the course of their campaign. So in a way, without Vincentus none of this would have been possible. So good on you Vincentus, you asshole.