Billy Budd

Billy Budd was a Wraith-turned-Spectre who lived in the 19th century United States.

Biography

Life is tough in the Savage West, and intolerance is often the rule rather than the exception. Too frequently clashes between cultures end in violence, and violence is never far from death.

So it was with Billy Budd and his lover. The pair traveled westward to find their fortune in California, but ran out of traveling money in Salt Lake City, Utah. They decided to stay in Salt Lake and take jobs until they saved enough money to continue their pilgrimage to California, but Savage West society kept that from happening. As Budd's lover applied for and was denied a position with the local Post Office, he was lynched in the street for being a homosexual. The mob dragged his body through the streets to shouts of "Queer" and "Berdache," finally leaving it to rest at Billy Budd's door.

Billy was destroyed. Destitute, lacking faith in humanity and now alone, he decided to take his own life. The mob didn't even give him the chance.

Billy rose from his sobs amid a cloud of smoke and heat. The rabble had set his house alight. Frantic to escape, Billy found the doors and windows boarded over. With nothing left to do, Billy drew a cold bath and slit his wrists with a straight razor, preferring the painless death to burning or asphyxiation.

It didn't end there. In Billy's mind, there was a place in Hell for him and his friends, and this was it: the burned remnants of his flat. Something was wrong, however. The man in the mask and chains told Billy that immediately.

For untold nights, Billy served his reaper, his suffering made worse by their periodic slumber in the very house in which he died. One day, before his master awoke, Billy crept into his room and removed the mask - and recoiled in horror from his lover's face.

With a bitter acknowledgment of the irony (wasn't it because of him that his lover had been killed?), Billy bludgeoned his former lover into Oblivion in his make-shift bed. Time for a new start for Billy Budd. Even Satan had rejected his soul, and doomed him to forever walk in the shadow of his brief life.

Returning eastward, Billy fell in with a group of wraiths who didn't care about his sexuality or the fact that he had killed his reaper. He learned many Arcanoi from them, but soon parted ways when it became obvious that they had too little in common to share eternity.

Before long, Billy Budd found himself in the company of William Quantrill. Though he detested the former Confederate captain from the outset, Billy saw a perfect opportunity in Quantrill's plans for revenge against the intolerant masses. Unfortunately, Quantrill had some predilection for Lawrence rather than Salt Lake City, but Billy reasoned that at least he could learn from this malefactor and perhaps address Salt Lake City later. He did have forever, after all.

Billy Budd arranged Quantrill's relationship with Angel Hodge via Puppetry. As he knew he would, Billy soon grew tired of the stale nature of Quantrill's minuscule empire. He saw Hodge weakening under the unfair arrangement and decided to leave before things went completely sour; Billy knew how unbearable Quantrill would be if his plans went awry.

Then it hit him: He had been wasting his time with the faceless mob rather than delivering personal vengeance to his persecutors. Billy knew Quantrill to be the same sort of bigoted brute as the people who did him in back in Salt Lake City. He would test the waters with Quantrill and then return to Salt Lake to make it a living Hell.

Deserting Quantrill's camp, Billy has taken up a stealthy existence at the fringes of town, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring Quantrill's petty empire down around his ears. Billy is aware of Piper Dunsirn's ability to hear the anguished cries from the soulforge and plans on using her resources to call in aid against Quantrill. He has also been whispering in Marshal Hodge's ear, encouraging the lawman to resign his post and break his allegiance with Quantrill. Now that the pieces are falling into place, only a few key strokes remain until the sweetness of revenge comes to fruition.

Sadly, sanity would lose its grip over Billy Budd and Oblivion would then lay its claim upon him before he ever reached Salt Lake City.

Profile

  • Image: Billy Budd is a fair main with blonde hair and a furtive manner. His features are thin and attractive, but his nervous behavior makes him seem mousy. If Billy had any money in life, he would have been a smart dresser, but his relative poverty forced him to wear secondhand clothes, in which he appears as a wraith (though he wears them well).
  • Roleplaying Hints: Somewhere between learning of your lover's betrayal and falling in with Quantrill the pressure has taken its toll. You are sometimes aware of your paranoia and your irrational conceptions of revenge, but it doesn't make a difference - they've got to pay. Hide behind a web of intrigue and lies, strike with stealth and exact your vengeance against whoever crosses your path or arouses your ire. To Hell with all of them.
  • Destiny: Insanity wreaks havoc with Bully Budd, and before he makes it back to Salt Lake City he is claimed by Oblivion.
  • Nature: Rebel
  • Demeanor: Survivor
  • Circle: None (Former Lawrence Gentry)
  • Physical: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2
  • Social: Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Appearance 4
  • Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 3
  • Talents: Alertness 1, Dodge 2, Expression 4, Subterfuge 4
  • Skills: Etiquette 2, Firearms 1, Meditation 2, Stealth 2
  • Knowledges: Enigmas 1, Occult 2, Politics 1
  • Backgrounds: Notoriety 1
  • Passions: Harm the intolerant (Hate) 5, Return to Salt Lake City (Revenge) 4, Ruin Quantrill's efforts (Spite) 2
  • Arcanoi: Embody 3, Keening 1, Outrage 3, Phantasm 1, Puppetry 4
  • Fetters: Burnt-out Home 2
  • Willpower: 5
  • Pathos: 5
  • Permanent Corpus: 10
  • Shadow: Rationalist
  • Angst: 5
  • Thorns: Aura of Corruption, Trick of the Light, Shadowplay
  • Shadow Passions: Make Quantrill aware of the Psyche's plans (Self-Loathing) 3, Foster paranoia (Greed) 2, Never return to Salt Lake City (Spite) 2

References

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