When Carnies Attack!
King Scum: lord of the Carnies, master of the roadies, and keeper of the Lighthouse of the Blind (4 tickets at the gate; one ride per day, folks!)
In short, he’s kind of fucked in the head.
To the underbelly of the carnival world, there are those who exist for a summer, a week, a month, but only once in a lifetime; the short-timers. Then there are the ones who last for five, ten, twenty years; the lifers. And finally, there’s the ones who grew up in one carnival, faire, fest, or -palooza or another, and know no better lifestyle beyond hawking, gawking, and shocking.
Those are the Carnies. Some are essentially good people; some experience life with a little help from the chemistry of the drug world; others drink their way to happiness, night-after-night; some are too crazy to exist otherwise, and can only be safely seen in public if and when they are wearing a baseball cap and a pair of coveralls.
Then there’s King Scum. He’s none of the above.
His carnival suffered accident after accident, and mysterious deaths began rolling through on a consistent basis; his group, Funamazin’ Family Entertainment, had attracted attention from five schools of magick, and they began to duke it out, best of three, for the prize: winner takes all.
The Entropomancers took over the rides; safety records were set on fire, and stuffed into gear boxes.
The Irascimancers took down the booths, and installed even more hideously unwinnable games.
Amoromancers worked the crowds and carnies; to some, it was a lowering of standards — to others, raising them.
The Thantomancers began snuffing out upsetting personnel; including two FBI agents, further driving the problem of scoring good drugs into the stratosphere — no dealers would show up, making everyone edgier, and edgier.
It was when the Dipsomancer cabal ‘accidentally’ killed off D-Rail’s girlfriend and her mother, that he began to get pissed off. And stay pissed off.
After the first week, the Amoromancers had been giving their marks the clap and crabs — sometimes, you have to take sacrifices. VD is part of it.
Eighth night had the first Thanatomancer getting shot to death. With a water cannon. In a Port-a-John.
Night nine, and there was no more problem from the Entropomancers; they’d been rounded up, and forced to play six hands of ‘Chop Poker’, with the bets being appendages and limbs. He kicked them to death, after the sixth hand.
On night ten, he’d cleared out the park with veiled threats, overt violence, and a bomb scare.
Except for the Dipsomancers. With a grin, he approached them, or so says the videotape of the vent, from the security camera. What it doesn’t show is how he forced them to drink Dran-O and Clorox bleach.
And this is why he’s on the run, for the most part, until his arrival in Portland, Oregon. Here, he is invisible; he’s an unseen force, slowly chipping away at the dangerous aspects of the Occult Underground. His past is shrouded in mystery, booze, and methamphetamine; his appearance is simply too upsetting to view without the mind recoiling, and remembering ‘differently’.
But, when he looks into a mirror, he sees himself as he was; clear-eyed, smart, and vigiliant.
Everyone else sees a party clown with a red nose, floppy shoes, and a bizarre outfit.
STATS:
Clown-Fu! 45% Dodge-in-a-funny-way 35%
Beat You Senseless with a Bat 35% Drive Clown Car 15%
Notice 35% Carnie Lore 25% Education-by-PBS 25%
Charming Bastard 15% Lie Straightfaced 45% Intimidate (30%) Personamancy 50% (special)
OBSESSION: Not Being Drake Railemon. He’s dull as Hell. Erasing Drake Railemon from existence.
Rage Stimulus: drunks endangering the lives of children, the injured, and the mentally-ill.
Fear Stimulus: That he’ll wind up dying a drunk, deserted, desecrated clown. Won’t ever drink. Ever.
Noble Stimulus: Make folks laugh; at each other, themselves, and the world. Laughter keeps the pain at bay for a while.
Carnie Lore: the essentials of operating rides, booths, and assorted attractions, successfully, usually require a little engineering knowledge, both ltierally and socially. By postioning himself, he keeps dart throwers from hitting the balloons at the booths, nailing a ring into a fishbowl, and making a good swing on the mallet-pound. Essentially, a successful roll will permit him a dodge roll versus melee, and ranged attacks over 30 feet away, if he’s in surroundings he considers ‘familiar’.
Personamancy (special): his role as a party clown is permanent, due to the tattoos of the makeup on his entire face, hands, and neck, a collagen injection to his nose and lips, and creative and liberal use of hair dyes and sprays. If the lighting goes to a degree in which someone would take a penalty, his glowing skull makeup becomes active, adding to his unnatural appearance. As such, he is a naturally intimidating figure, in the dark and usually plays this up. As such, he’s usually brimming with minor charges, as he can not leave the role, unless he makes a full-head mask, to blend in with ‘normal people’.
Possessions: fishbat (+6 damage), seltzer bottle (loaded with DMSO and LSD), stereo boombox (with creepy shrieking noises and upsettingly real screams, set to calliope music), digital video camera with floodlight, makeup kit, and keys to the carnival.
His alternate persona’s appearance closely resembles Captain Spaulding, from House of 1000 Corpses, but with a large red nose, better hair, and an eerie grin.
Madness Meter:
Violence: 4 Hard 1 Failed
Unnatural: 2 Hard 2 Failed
Helplessness: 1 Hard 1 Failed
Isolation: 3 Failed
Self: 4 Hard 3 Failed
Owner property: Funamazin’ Family Forum (travelling carnival chain, with eight operating at any given non-winter month — each makes about eight K a week for his personal spending; he’s getting fairly rich), O’Maxwell’s Pub (Cleveland, OH bar he won in a game with the Entropomancers), and lastly: the six-gun used by John Wayne in True Grit; it’s mystic energies add an additional 10% to Intimidate rolls, Firearms to-hit rolls, and permit flip-flopping if it is used on a non-American target. It’s almost constantly in his left hip pocket; the one successful thief who drew it, had it snatched back, and used on them.
Poor Pablo. He never saw it coming. Then again, he was shot in the back of his head, so it kind of figures.
Shouldn’t this be in the Dukes section?
Oops.
Hit the wrong selection.
Heh heh.
Fixed.
Aside from the entorpomancers, and dipsomancers, I don’t recognize any of the schools, are they in a supliment somewhere or did you make them up, either way they sound awesome.
They’re from the supplement:
“Post Modern Magick.”
And here comes the troublesome question: At what point does the persona become the personality?
That is, since his mask is permanently applied, hasn’t Drake Railemon become this clown freak? And because it is now his entire life, not an act, should existing in this way generate charges?
It’s a question of Transvestites and Transexuals. A male personamancer who dresses up as a woman is generating charges. One that has surgery to change his gender is not pretending to be a woman; he’s actually become one, it’s no longer an act, so s/he gets no charges from living her new life.
To quote Fight Club:
“Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”
Women are born, not made; the transitional experience between the genders is difficult, in every respect, but to some, it is a higher calling. It goes beyond sexual preference, to what is commonly called ‘sexual identity’. The search for identity is a major driving force for many people; Personamancers are just as human as the next person(a). More or less, it’s a costume; it’s never been stated you have to remove the costume, or ever drop out of the role; just says you have to have a role, play it, and keep to it, in order to gain a charge.
Now, a Personamancer who’s transgendered, however, and pretending to be a woman and readying to marry someone, perhaps someone who wants a child, well.. that’s the role of a lifetime.
Right, but I’m not the dumb kid I was in high school anymore, and this freak who decided t oget a permanent clown face isn’t the boring fuck her used to be either. He has permanently altered himself into this thing; it’s not an act at this point, it’s just who he is.
The taboo involves not revealing your true self. Since the mask is permanent, any personamancer will tell you that his mask has become his true self. If you can’t take off the mask, it ceases to be a costume; it’s just your face.
One oddity; in PostModern Magic, the listing for the cabal 101001101 has the twins who run the Oneiromancers (the Rahyab) as never being capable of sleeping; no real explanation beyond ‘they just don’t’ is really offered up; this guy is not ‘born a clown’, nor particularly clown-ish. He deals meth, offs rivals, and creeps people out, running a carnival as a sideline, to fund his listed three hobbies (dealing meth, offing rivals, and creeping people out). I see no clown; I see someone in an unfortunate mindset, who’s probably suffered more than he should have, and is taking it back out on the world; his targets seem primarily to be the dangerous and ‘unwholesome’ aspects of the Occult Underworld.
Doesn’t look like a clown to me.
So a good looking personamancer who was in a car accident which changed their appearance into something ugly would be collecting charges because he still thought of himself as the attractive person?
He looks like a clown to me, because the make-up is tatooed on, and the nose is an implant. It’s not a mask, because it’s his face, and it’s no longer a role, because there’s no lie to it. It’s permanent; it’s just his life.
At least that’s the way it seems to me.
Appearance is one thing, actions are quite another. This guy’s a whacked-out vigilante who’s PRETENDING to be a clown. He’s gone to great lengths to lend credibility to this pretension, but the glow-in-the-dark skull-face proves there’s something more to it.
In reference to Mr. Unlucky’s comment on 101001101 – IT doesn’t sleep. They probably do – individually but the entity continues to rack up charges. In regards to clowns – I can think of very little that is creepier. I never saw anything funny about clowns except , perhaps for those poor excuses for one sees in a circus.
A face is not who we are. I could get plastic surgury to look like a famous actor to the point where we could stand next to each other and people would be hard pressed to choose the real one. So am I him? No. I’m me, and when I pretend to be him I charge up. He knows he’s not a clown, no matter what his face looks like. He’s not happy, he’s not funny, he’s not here to amuse you, he’s Joe Pesci with a permanent clown face and a baseball bat to beat in your skull until your brains are a fine paste. A brightly painted red baseball bat with OUCH written on it.
Some people need to take a deep breath and rules lawyer a bit less in this wonderfully complex, open-ended system.
I don’t think this is a case of ‘rules lawyering’; one long, strong look at his Noble Stimulus could define him as a man trying to defeat his own personality; the role he placs is for an audience of a sparse few, essentially — himself. his family and whatever surviving friends and associates who are willing to remain so with this degenerate. He’s a ‘clown’ in appearance, in action (when not doing his ‘big three hobbies’) and thought.
The role must be believed; party clown behavior is one thing, but when he turns off the lights, sends the kids back to the pony-buying parents and turns off the Tilt-A-Puke, he’s a sick, sick man. The role is kept alive as the kids think he’s just wearing makeup; the parents think he’s committed to being a clown 24-7 and the local PD can’t exactly have a vast collection of details surrounding death-by-clown-paraphenlia.
The role continues as long as the tattoos stay on, the masks stay off, and he doesn’t respond to his own name. Imagine going for even a full day without having *anyone* call you by your real name, nickname or clever aphorism — no identity but the one you make up.
He knows he’s a clown; he’s just a ‘crying on the inside’ kind of clown.