A Continent of Banalities

Detroit, 1946. When people think of a woman assassin, they think of some Rita Hayworth-looking glamorpuss. That’s not Arlene. She has that kind of reassuring face you’d like to see in a doctor’s office or behind a lunch counter. Arlene is an assassin though, and has eleven confirmed kills to her name. Don’t hesitate, don’t stand out. That’s words to live by for a contract killer. Arlene made her first kill in the jailhouse. She was inside for knocking her (ex)husband down with a bottle, and stealing his wallet and car. While inside, she strangled an officious trustee who tried to blackmail her. Arlene got away with it, and the only other witness, Astrid Felton, knew to keep quiet, up to a point. When they got out, Astrid admitted that she’d told her boyfriend Eugene Farrugia, “a big man in the COMMISSION”. This turned out to be a half-truth at best. Gene was a go-between, and quite squeamish for a made man. Still, Arlene found that they could do business. She’d do the hits and Gene wou...

  Aah! I'm running slightly behind, and I didn't make another lifepath character. Here is a tough out of work utility worker for Hard City instead. It's a noir game, and the standard setting is the US in 1946. I've decided to make a character for the 90s instead. You like a challenge. Maybe a bit too much, but it never seems that way at the time. It just feels good to put everything on the line and pull it off. You’ve fixed power lines in the aftermath of a hurricane, strung new phase wires to a pole top transformer as a rainstorm broke out, welded in a crawlspace while trading insults with the volatile and armed homeowner. It’s a cliché, but it makes you feel alive. That last one got you fired though. Turns out this guy with his gun and six teeth to his name could turn on a dime and be an absolute Karen on the phone to the boss. Turned out they knew each other from high school. Fuck ‘em. Link to character sheet:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pa-vb8Npd2Jcm0n9Q68NyFF...

 Day 14 A quickly-made character for the system Dicks & Dames. The Chambers stuff is my addition.  “If only Queen Cassilda knew how we suffer” It was all Irma could do not to roll her eyes at the tiny woman in the purple shawl. Instead she looked out the window. A new fog was gathering, and another iron ship was disgorging its human cargo.  Every day new people seemed to arrive, each with their drawn faces and their precious nonsense. Some talk of the Imperial family of America, others of a sign which seduces the sensitive and artistic to madness. Still others talk of nights lost to absinthe and débauche. All talk of the King, the Mask and the Phantom. Symbolist bullshit, but bullshit which seemed to be at the center of all things. The dead center.  And so many of them ended up in Irma’s dusty office, exhorting her to find  the fiance that was sent to the penal colonies, or the comrade who was lost in a clandestine war in the streets of old New York. Irma fe...