Character Creation and Such

[Gaffer]

We can talk here about character ideas and questions.

Let's get the characters you've been working on posted, so we know where we are.

[jabonko]

Here's what I had in mind for my character's backstory:

Politics was just what you did in the Johnston family. That’s the way it had been for generations. First: attending university. For the men this was largely a four-year social event with two goals. The first was making future business, social, and political connections. The second was finding a suitable wife. Next would come marriage, family, and a successful career in politics. Not for Langdon Johnston.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, either. It just seemed that Langdon was more interested in the chase than the actual woman. The thrill of the hunt was so much more interesting than the actual kill. It’s not that he was a womanizer. No. He would never compromise a lady’s virtue. But those girls were definitely not ladies, right fellas?

Despite his skirt-chasing, Langdon managed to be very successful at the University, graduating in the upper third of his class. His grades didn’t matter to his parents. The fact that he never found a wife did. Instead of a mid-level position in a political bureau with the potential for upward mobility, Langdon’s father only offered him a minor role as a clerk.

Undeterred, Langdon busted his hump for his superiors, making a good impression and earning the respect of the bureau. At 29, he is starting to realize that unless he does something spectacular, he will never rise much higher than a mid-level civil official filing papers and forms in a dusty office.

“You bring about what you think about” is Langdon’s motto. So instead of wallowing in his political career’s stagnation, he acts as if he had a much larger role in city government. He’s not lying, just embellishing. “I played a major part in the beautification of the Alder Street park” really means that he filed a requisition form on behalf of the Alder Street Neighborhood Association.

The years of sitting behind a desk are slowly eroding his years spent fencing. His once trim physique gently melting into a bit of pudge here and there. And his ideals are similarly eroding. Up until now he’s been content to refuse bribes or connections with shady characters. But now, with his 30th birthday a month away, he’s starting to have second thoughts.

“Maybe if I had a wife I’d be able to climb the ladder higher. They’d see I was a family man. Good character. Family values.” He sighs, “Or maybe I should take up one of those mob guys’ offers. At least then I’d supplement my income even if I wasn’t moving up in the world.”

[Gaffer]

An interesting and off-beat character, which I like. I don't see what will bring him to the Hudson Street Police Station or what will lead him to involve himself in the case (other than the beautiful woman asking for help - maybe that's enough).

A minor thing - the name Johnston seems pretty nondescript. You might think about an "Old Family" name to clearly designate his ancestry, either English -- Standish, Alden, Brewster, Bradford, Crane, Winslow, Lovell -- or Dutch -- Block, Brock, Verhoeven, Vandergelder, Martense, Cruger, Hackl -- something like that.

Coming along nicely, though.

[jabonko]

Name change: fine with me. will get on that.

Hook ideas: He's looking to do something "spectacular" to make him stand out as a great candidate for higher position. Helping in an investigation, or better yet, showing up the police and solving it himself! would definitely qualify. And yes, if a lovely lady asked him to help, he'd jump at the chance. Especially if she were marriageable.

[Gaffer]

So we just have to find a reason for him to be at the station. Of course, just paying (or disputing) a parking ticket or making a complaint of some sort would suffice.

Where does he live?

[Lammomedes]

Reposted from the PM file:

Dexter Francis Xavier Ford was born in 1901. He was raised in the Bronx, not far from the New York Zoological Society’s Bronx zoo. His father, Michael, was a bus driver while his mother, Brigid, helped with St. Anthony’s local church charity. Immigrants from County Mayo, Ireland, both of his parents wanted their son to have a better life than they had and they saved money to send him to private Catholic schools and hopefully college. In 1919, Dex was accepted to Fordham University and pursued a degree in history. His parents had hoped that he would eventually get a law degree, but that never happened. A lucrative job offer would drag him into law enforcement upon graduation.

Graduating in June 1923, Dex accepted a law enforcement job with the Prohibition Unit of the Department of Internal Revenue. For four years, Dex learned the ins and outs of enforcement of the Volstead Act, cracking down on alcohol smuggling, rum running and busting speakeasies. For the first two years, he worked on a team of agents assisting the famous Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, probably the most successful Prohibition Agents in NYC. In 1926, Dex found himself transferred to the Canadian border, as a Chief Investigator in Charge of Prohibition Enforcement working alongside US Customs officials stationed in Buffalo. While in Buffalo, he met his future wife, Constance, and they eventually married in 1927. A year later, Dex was the father of young Ryan Ford, and with a promotion, he moved to Chicago where his life would head into the toilet.

Chicago was one of the most dangerous cities in 1928. The recent move of the Prohibition Unit to the Department of the Treasury brought Dex and his fellow agents into the field of view of the powerful Chicago mob. Crossing various mobsters in the middle of an outbreak of violence, Dex found his own family attacked and killed in a drive by shooting May 1929. It was more than he could take, and despite spending six months hunting down the assassins, Dex left Chicago for a desk job back in New York City. He remained employed by the Prohibition Bureau until December 1930 when he decided to leave the agency once and for all.

For the last few years, he has been working with a friend from the Bureau of Investigation, Joe Morton. Morton was burnt out, leaving the bureau in 1929 and opened up his own Private Investigation agency in Manhattan. The arrival of the Great Depression sent the Morton Detective Agency into a downward financial spiral. However, Dex had some ideas for the agency and the two men set up Ford and Morton Detective Agency. With their connections in various federal and local law enforcement agencies, they have made a decent living despite the Great Depression taking a toll on so many small businesses. While Joe tends to handle the more day-to-day cases, Dex has developed a reputation for dealing with cases that tend to stump the NYPD—missing persons, strange occurrences, etc. Captain Miles Boyd has helped steer cases in his direction, while Dex and Joe have done some work on the side for the police when they needed something done without official sanction or upon which Joe and Dex could call on old friends from their respective former federal employers.

Joe introduced Dex to a client’s daughter, Lila Armstrong. Lila is a chorus girl in Manhattan and she and Dex have been dating quite seriously for the last few months. Despite being nearly 10 years younger than Dex, the two of them enjoy each other’s company and the have discussed getting married at some point. For the time being, the two spend their free time seeing movies, eating dinner out and visiting with friends.

[Gaffer]

Still looks good.

Where does he live? How about Morton and Lila?

[jabonko]

I don't know New York well at all. He'd live somewhere relatively rich or prominent, but not necessarily "chic".

As for being at the station, perhaps he's visiting one of the "top brass" - which is what he calls them, when in reality he's meeting with maybe an officer right in the middle of the ladder, and not as near the top and Langdon would like others to believe.

[Gaffer]

The Murray Hill section seems like a good choice for his residence. It used to be where the "best people" lived before Park Avenue became the fashionable address. If his is an old family but not among the "Four Hundred" of Mrs. Astor, this is probably where they'd be.

He could have a small brownstone row house on East 36th Street or live with his parents or a relative there or he could have an apartment in the Shelburne-Murray Hill Hotel on Lexington Street. It depends on how independently he wants to live and whether he wants to deal with keeping a larger household with servants, etc. or have the hotel staff take care of his needs. It also depends on his means, of course, but I presume he's not totally dependent on his public servant wages.

Murray Hill is relatively close to the Broadway theater district and the main branch of the Public Library is an easy walk. He'd be working at City Hall at 2 Centre Street most likely, about a 20 minute subway commute or hour's walk from the Murray Hill neighborhood.

What bureau does he work in? You mentioned "filed a requisition form on behalf of the Alder Street Neighborhood Association" which could be Zoning or Parks or City Clerk's Office.

The idea of a lower level detective that he's come to know somehow is a good one.

[jabonko]

Murray-Hill Hotel sounds the best for what I'm envisioning.

I'm not really sure what bureau he'd work in. I left that kind of nebulous as I wasn't sure how much we'd be visiting his office during the game.

How does Vilas sound as a last name instead of Johnston? Langdon Vilas?

[Gaffer]

That sounds okay.

What college did he attend?

[jabonko]

Would the timing work out for him to have gone to Fordham University around the same time as Mr. Ford (Lammomedes)?

[Gaffer]

It looks like he could have been a sophomore when Ford was a senior. Note that Fordham is a Jesuit school and most of the student body probably Roman Catholic (though the School of Pharmacy was mostly Jewish at that time).

[jabonko]

Hmmmm... as a player I know very little about Catholicism, but that would suit his background, I think. I'm just looking for another connection to the other Investigators.

[Gaffer]

Sure. Works fine. And he doesn't have to be Catholic, just wanted to go to a good school. Or maybe his family is Catholic, but not very observant.

[Philulhu]

Delores Brown

The staccato typewriter tap of high heels announced her arrival before any of the men saw her. Around the corner she came, collar of her rain coat pulled up against the chill and the squalling rain. Wisps of brown hair escaped from under her cloche hat, framing an attractive face set in a brisk, business-like fashion. A pair of dark-rimmed glasses almost made her look schoolma’m-ish, but there was no mistaking who she was, for this was Delores Brown, the New York World-Telegram’s scourge of crooked politicians, bent cops and union men on the take across the city…

Delores looked at the words she’d written and sighed. If only life had worked out like that. Five years after she left Oklahoma and joined the World-Telegram hoping to make a name for herself, she was still covering accidents, petty crimes and pettier politics in Greenwich Village. She’d been promised great things but she’d seen a score of younger, prettier women, the one’s who’d ‘work late’ with the sub-editor in his office, come through and take the best jobs, the crime beats, the high-profile court cases, while her career languished. She was friends with a few of the cops down Hudson Street but it was a bit of a backwater and the pickings were meagre.

The depression had made things tough but she was managing to get by. She’d managed to hold onto her job, but she’d taken a pay cut that left her barely above the breadline. She’d moved out of her pretty little townhouse into a low-rent, two-bedroom apartment at 8 Bleeker Street, just off Broadway; a cold, draughty place with a shared bathroom, but it was all she could afford.

The one plus point was that the landlady, Mrs Wozniczka - the old Polish lady who owned the apartment block – had installed a telephone down stairs. She could hear it ring now, Mrs Wozniczka answering the phone in her heavily accented English, followed by, “Delores, dear? Zer is a man on ze telephone for you from ze Hudson Street Police Station…”

~~~

I've added in a few details as suggested - how's it look?

[Gaffer]

Very nice. I expect she'd be doing some "women's stories" -- the home show, the garden show, making last year's fashions look new -- and maybe some "sob sister" stuff -- mothers struggling to make ends meet with a husband out of work or on the road, the three-legged puppy adopted by the nuns, siblings split up when mom is hospitalized and dad's out of work. And it would probably not be limited to the Village, more wide-ranging and lots of Bronx and Brooklyn beats.

A few questions: How old is Delores? What's her education? Any romantic prospects?

Let's not think about her being summoned to the police station, but have a reason for her to be there.

[Philulhu]

I'd say she's about 28 or 29. I'm not sure what the American education system was at the time but I'd suggest she left high school(?) at 16(?), found a job as a secretary at her local paper & worked her way up to covering local stories that the chief reporter/editor didn't want to do. Frustrated by a lack of opportunities and of still being seen as the little woman in the office, she re-located to New York.

No love interest - the cops at the Station hit on her but she doesn't believe in mixing business and pleasure. She's not got much in the way of spare cash so socialising and meeting men outside of work is a no-no for the time being.

Happy to change the bit about phone call and make that more neutral. Perhaps she's just sniffing around the station, chatting to the cops and trying to get a line on a story?

[Gaffer]

I'd probably say she graduated high school. That was a pretty good attainment for an Oklahoma girl in 1923, even if she came from a fairly well-to-do family.

Not having money was a good reason in favor of dating in the time before women's liberation and feminism. Even dedicated career women could expect a man to bear all the expenses of a date. It would probably seem odd if she didn't have a couple of beaux, though she certainly could keep her virtue intact.

[A42]

Francis Luigi "Franky" Esposito
b. 1897, Brooklyn, NY

Ten years back I was going places in the NYPD. It was Father O'Malley who got me the chance. I'd played baseball with some guys from his parish. That was before. Before the war. Before the Spanish Flu. Before my dad and little Maria died. After that, throwing a ball around for a living didn't seem right.

I started out as a flatfoot. Answered a lot of "see the lady" calls. Worked my way up to detective investigator. I got to deal with the real crime. Rape, robbery, burglary. Making the mean streets a little less mean. I was bucking for a promotion to homicide. I was about to get it. Then it hit the fan.

A missing persons case. 76th precinct, Brooklyn. A little girl disappeared in Red Hook. The locals were tight-lipped and scared. Then another girl disappeared. Then another. Still nobody would talk. They were too afraid of whatever was happening to try to stop it. One guy that I used as a C-I told me they were afraid to talk to outsiders. "Outsider," I couldn't believe it. "I've lived here my whole life." He just shook his head and walked away. Never saw him again.

I got an anonymous tip that something was going down at a warehouse. I was suspicious, of course. Had to check it out anyway. I saw some... thing... come out of the darkness where I'd just been standing a second ago. It ripped my partner in half. Like he was a sheet of newspaper. Wet newspaper.

Next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital. Covered in blood. They never did find my partner.

My Lieutenant said my report stunk. I told him the whole deal stunk. He didn't think that was funny. I didn't think administrative leave was funny.

I still have nightmares. Sometimes it helps to get good and drunk. Other times it doesn't. The times when it helps are getting fewer and farther between. One of these days it won't help at all. Not sure what I'm going to do then.

I never got that appointment to homicide. I can't blame them. I'm lucky to still have my shield and I know it. I'm barely fit for the gambling and prostitution rackets they have me raiding in Greenwich Village. It's hard to muster up much gusto for that after what I've seen. What I still see, in my dreams.

Red Hook never changes. I don't go there anymore. Not on purpose, anyway. I've woken up there a few times. Covered in vomit and less thinkable things. Father O'Malley says I should stop drinking. I tell him he should talk.