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[Yoink]

The Ballad of "Pianola" Ambrose
An RTD

Leonard "Pianola" Ambrose is a legend 'round these parts. His fame, or notoriety (depending on who you asked) used to reach all across the City some fifteen years ago, but these days his name is just spoken in whispers around these here 'less-fortunate' neighborhoods. Doughside, Cornlake, even the old Baker's Hill industrial area where he done near lost his life, these sort of places need some mythical 'Robin Hood' figure to take their minds off how things are.

You might be wondering why I'm bringing this up, now. It's all done-and-dusted; sure, they never found his body, but he sure as hell disappeared after the shoot-out at the butterscotch factory, where his entire gang- "Pills" Monroe, Jackie the Hippo, "Two-Dick" Dallas, all the rest- was either killed or captured. So them better-off folk could breathe easy, lots of people made speeches, and Commissioner Geralt got that political career he always wanted.
Nothin' more to say, right?

Wrong.

Pianola Ambrose is back. An' I hear he's putting together a crew.


So! Here's where you come in! The rag-tag, downtrodden populace, the loners and misfits, loonies, the true dregs of society... That's you!
Whoever you are, whatever your reasons, you heard the tune of the Pianola and decided that's a tune you could dance to.
One thing, though; once you ride with "Pianola" Ambrose, there ain't no going back. You can't half-ass it. His mob are outlaws, and as far as the law is concerned you're a rabid dog.
While those Mafia fat-cats live plump and pretty, politicians in all but name, ruling their territories through meticulous planning, money and fear, Ambrose's gang are outside any ordered society. You get by with just your wits, a fair dash of courage and, well yes, fear.
What's a decent feller supposed ta do without a little fear, anyway? You answer me that! First, though, what's yer name...

Spoiler: OOC (click to show/hide)

This here is a light-hearted, Depression-era RTD where players take the role of a gang of crooks looking to join up with the legendary 'gentleman' criminal "Pianola" Ambrose. I am taking a VERY relaxed view on historical fact and such, seeing as obsessing over that sort of thing is what killed my last RTD.
The mechanics are gonna be pretty basic, standard RTD rolls, players start off with no bonuses to anything. Or items, really. (You're assumed to have clothes!) However, once a character does something badass and/or memorable, they might just receive a relevant nickname. This will incur a bonus to related activities and what-not.
I was going to say something else here, but I forgot, so n'yah!
Oh, and feel free to make up whatever fictional neighborhoods, places and such in your backstory. It is set, unsurprisingly, in some fictional big city in the USA.

Edit: Oh yeah, that's right! I'll do a 'Turn 0' introduction thing once I have some players. 4 to 6, no more than that.
I'll make stuff more clear then. Probably.

Character sheet

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name:
Appearance:
Bio:
Lucky number: (Within 1-100)

Rap Sheets

Spoiler: Elixas Colton Roxine (click to show/hide)

Name: Elixas Colton Roxine

Apperance: A tall, chocolate-skinned gentleman with a thin mustache, a clean shaved head and the best damn smile you've seen. Wouldn't be caught dead without his striped spot suit and his fedora.

Biography: Elixas wanted to do something with his life, new and exciting. Sure, a jazz musician made money, but everyone was doing that. So Elixas learned some languages from the Orient. With his new skill, and dashing charisma, Elixas became a big time smuggler of Asian goods. Opium, weapons, women, booze, whatever. As such, Elixas grew an appriciaton for Eastern culture. He studied martial arts and read up on Asia. (Even to this day, his most preferred weapons are those from Asia.) On one fateful day, Elixas stopped for a meal in a rural town. Some local good ole' boys decided to "teach this jive-ass nigger" his place. Of course they didn't expect to deal with a Shaolin blade and a pistol. With a sizable bodycount, Elixas fled looking for a group he could find security in. And that's how he found Pianola.

Lucky Number: 73

Status:
Inventory: A few little baggies of opium, quite a decent chunk of cash(Approx. $60).
Crimes: Sale of illicit substances.
Alias(es): "Storytime".

Spoiler: Aerie Rivian (click to show/hide)

Name: Aerie Rivian
Appearance: A woman of average height and a lean build, Aerie has long shoulder-length black hair and dark brown eyes. Her skin is of a light complexion and she prefers wearing lightly colored garments, and a scarf.

Bio: The society - the tyranny, the leaders of them all. Aerie was but one of the few who knew the truth behind their facades of law and 'order', of what went behind the stage at night. While not all were considered such, most had the name and style - politicians, corrupted and estranged from their fellowmen.

Born a patriot and a country-girl, Aerie was easy to convince to join in on the band of outlaws, knowing that it was better to fight against a cause than to serve under it - only if that cause served itself.

Lucky number: 5

Status:
Inventory: 1 scarf of ambiguous description.
Crimes: Disturbance of the peace.
Alias(es): None.

Spoiler: Jacob Greyson (click to show/hide)

Name: Jacob Greyson
Appearance: Clean shaven and tall with shoulder length blonde hair
Bio: Jacob had always been on the wrong side of the law, he made his living off the greed of others as a con-man,  he was good at it, only targeting rich people who he assumed had stepped on hard off people, also he never took enough to be worth the humiliation of reporting him. Then the recession hit, and people were becoming more careful with their money, worse some of the more powerful people he had targeted decided that it may be worth the humiliation after all, so he ran to join Pianola's gang hoping for a group that would protect him from the law.
Lucky number: 13

Status:
Inventory: Bottle of O'Dolan's Homemade Mystery Brew. (On bar)
Crimes:
Alias(es): None.

Spoiler: Marion Mcburney (click to show/hide)

Name: Marion Mcburney

Appearance: Marion is a tall man, hiding most of his face under a fedora and a surprisingly sparse attempt at a red beard. His shoulders are a little thin for his height, but he walks longstrided. What little hair that emerges from under his hat is the same red as his beard, and his eyes are a cool grey.

Bio:Marion is a fairly traditional Irish-American man. His mother is a poor woman, his father is long gone- dead probably. Before he got pulled into the life his future was as dull and grey as the water his mother spent her days up to her elbows in, now... Well there was a chance, a splash of a color in a life of grey. Blood in that dishwater future, blood that only he could provide.

'Course, you could only bleed so much before it was the end of you.

Lucky number: 22

Status:
Inventory:
Crimes: None
Alias(es): None.

In a shallow grave... Dead/Gone Characters

Spoiler: Jeremiah Nix (click to show/hide)

Name: Jeremiah Nix

Appearance: A tall, man of average build, with a bushy black beard and intelligent black eyes.  Wears a coat, most of the time, simple brown and orange. 

Bio: A former pianist, Jeremiah struck out when it came to performances at any venue, so he's decided to walk the path of a criminal to earn riches, and with luck, fame.

Lucky number: 4

Status: Multiple bruises, bullet graze to upper left arm. Living in sewers, fighting hobos for supremacy.
Inventory:
Crimes:

Spoiler: Clayton Taylor (click to show/hide)

Name: Clayton Taylor
Appearance/Bio: A large, coal black, negro guitarist with fast fingers and a short temper.  Stole his first guitar, and has been rolling down the lost highway ever since.
Lucky Number: 38 (trivia: 1938 is the year fender's radio service, later to become fender electric instrument manufacturing, was founded)

Status: Broken nose.
Inventory: Acoustic guitar.
Crimes: Disorderly conduct.
Alias(es): None.

Up-And-Comers... The Waitlist

Spoiler: William Dunn (click to show/hide)

Name: William Dunn

Appearance: Tall with windswept brown hair and restless hazel eyes. His face usually is decorated with a goofy, devil may care expression, fitting his attitude towards life. His chin is dotted by stubble the same color as the hair on top of his head.

Bio: One could say William was insane. Once could say he was nothing more than a deluded fool. In fact, most say that. William, on the other hand, says that he's the true American dream, never giving up and never surrendering.

His early life wasn't pretty, as can be expected of someone who lives in Poortown USA, as he and his friends took to calling it. The greatest escape from life like that was the cinema. There, he could forget his troubles and instead focus on dastardly villains tying damsels to train tracks, cowboys hunting down bandits, and ace pilots saving America from Bismarcks german reign of terror. He never forgot those days. Even when he grew up, he still thought back to the cowboys justice, simple justice, not corrupted by the mob, or held up by officials.

When he met Ambrose, he didn't know what to think. Sure, the man was a criminal, but he was better than most of the cops. He stole from people, but mostly the rich. William knew what he was. He was a modern cowboy, or the closest thing. Ambrose was on the wrong side of the law, but the law was on the wrong side of William. Using whatever money he could scrounge up, William bought twin .357s, and fitting ammunition. With those in holster, he ran off after Ambrose, looking to bring true justice to this city.

Lucky number: 81, a year of great justice on the old frontier.

Spoiler: Murray Mason (click to show/hide)

Name: Murray Mason
Appearance: Murray is tall, thick, and ugly - you'll never find a finer specimen of the "dumb muscle" type (though in this case the "dumb" means he doesn't speak much as opposed to any particular mental deficiency).  While he may have been good-looking once Murray's been on the wrong side of too many fights; a lazy eye, a bent nose, a lopsided grin, all attest to one too many bats to the face.  The six short scars on his left forearm, though, indicate he's given as good as he's got.
He's most often seen wearing a cheap pinstriped suit and a rather nice hat.  The incongruously nice hat is a souvenir of his first bank stick-up, but the suit was his brother's.  It's a little small, but said brother only needs one suit nowadays.
The cigar that he's always got in his breast pocket is mostly just for show.  Murray's publically hoping that one day it'll save his life and get lit, all in one bullet, and nobody's told him that a cigar makes for a horrible pocket protector.
Bio: Just your ordinary muscle looking for an extraordinary job.  Murray's been enforcing for various no-name crooks ever since he hit that growth spurt at fourteen, and while he might not be dumb, he's sure not got enough imagination to try and move up in the world.  Somehow, Murray's never been inside, though a few of his employers have gotten hefty sentences; there's a rumour he's a snitch, but he's really just not been important enough to arrest.
Murray's weapon of choice is the Tommy gun with the drum magazine, and everyone agrees that it fits him.  He likes to go slugging with an aluminum baseball bat sometimes, too.
When the rumours reached his ear that Pianola was back in town, Murray knew his temporary unemployment was about to end.  Everybody could use some muscle, and this muscle knew exactly what to do about it.
Lucky number: 11.

[Yoink]

Reserved Post.


[/intro]

[agentorangesoda]

Name: Clayton Taylor
Appearance/Bio: A large, coal black, negro guitarist with fast fingers and a short temper.  Stole his first guitar, and has been rolling down the lost highway ever since.
Lucky Number: 38 (trivia: 1938 is the year fender's radio service, later to become fender electric instrument manufacturing, was founded)

[Baradine]

I wasn't already playing two RTD's and running two more, I would totally play this.

[NRDL]

Name: Jeremiah Nix

Appearance: A tall, man of average build, with a bushy black beard and intelligent black eyes.  Wears a coat, most of the time, simple brown and orange. 

Bio: A former pianist, Jeremiah struck out when it came to performances at any venue, so he's decided to walk the path of a criminal to earn riches, and with luck, fame.

Lucky number: 4

[TCM]

Name: Elixas Colton Roxine

Apperance: A tall, chocolate-skinned gentleman with a thin mustache, a clean shaved head and the best damn smile you've seen. Wouldn't be caught dead without his striped spot suit and his fedora.

Biography: Elixas wanted to do something with his life, new and exciting. Sure, a jazz musician made money, but everyone was doing that. So Elixas learned some languages from the Orient. With his new skill, and dashing charisma, Elixas became a big time smuggler of Asian goods. Opium, weapons, women, booze, whatever. As such, Elixas grew an appriciaton for Eastern culture. He studied martial arts and read up on Asia. (Even to this day, his most preferred weapons are those from Asia.) On one fateful day, Elixas stopped for a meal in a rural town. Some local good ole' boys decided to "teach this jive-ass nigger" his place. Of course they didn't expect to deal with a Shaolin blade and a pistol. With a sizable bodycount, Elixas fled looking for a group he could find security in. And that's how he found Pianola.

Lucky Number: 73

[Tiruin]

RESERVE ME!

I am not missing this!
And done!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name: Aerie Rivian
Appearance: A woman of average height and a lean build, Aerie has long shoulder-length black hair and dark brown eyes. Her skin is of a light complexion and she prefers wearing lightly colored garments, and a scarf.

Bio: The society - the tyranny, the leaders of them all. Aerie was but one of the few who knew the truth behind their facades of law and 'order', of what went behind the stage at night. While not all were considered such, most had the name and style - politicians, corrupted and estranged from their fellowmen.

Born a patriot and a country-girl, Aerie was easy to convince to join in on the band of outlaws, knowing that it was better to fight against a cause than to serve under it - only if that cause served itself.

Lucky number: 5

[wolfchild]

Name: Jacob Greyson
Appearance: Clean shaven and tall with shoulder length blonde hair
Bio: Jacob had always been on the wrong side of the law, he made his living off the greed of others as a con-man,  he was good at it, only targeting rich people who he assumed had stepped on hard off people, also he never took enough to be worth the humiliation of reporting him. Then the recession hit, and people were becoming more careful with their money, worse some of the more powerful people he had targeted decided that it may be worth the humiliation after all, so he ran to join Pianola's gang hoping for a group that would protect him from the law.
Lucky number: 13

[Yoink]

Okay, well, everyone so far is in! I'll start working on the introduction whilst everyone gets their sheets done.

E: Hoo boy, I was about to post saying: 'Alright, I've got the first update ready for tomorrow', but then I saw you'd all finished your sheets.
Well, first Update incoming!

Edit: Posted. Bed-time for me, now.

[Yoink]

Prologue - O'Dolan's Speakeasy

Somewhere out in a forgotten stretch of Lower Doughside, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst a few weed-choked vacant lots, is the O'Dolan's Speakeasy.
On the ground floor of a crumbling old brownstone building, the O'Dolan doesn't receive much in the way of natural light, something often appreciated by those choosing to do business there.
And despite its isolation(or perhaps due to it), the place does receive plenty of custom. At all hours there are at least a few big sedans and coupes sat around the back in the yard, and the wood-panelled door is watched over by a couple of suits.

Stepping inside, the scruffy doorman cocking an eye at you- the rogue's gaze lingers especially on Aerie for a moment- you move down the worn steps (the floor is somewhat lower than street level) and into a cavernous, dimly-lit common room. Apart from the dark, slightly dungeon-like feeling, the place is surprisingly well-appointed after seeing its outer appearance.
(Well ventilated, too, it seems; despite the number of red ciagrette-ends glowing throughout the room, the air isn't too bad)
You feel eyes on you, briefly, from tables about the room, people apparently judging you not a threat before returning to their discussions as you move past.

Along one wall you see the bar, a real artifact decorated with what seem to be a few down-and-out, near-comatose heavy drinkers, with a rather standard-looking bartender type standing behind it. Yes, he's wiping down a glass.
The other main attraction of the room is a stage in the far corner, occupied by the house band, doling out some slow, mournful jazz.
To Jeremiah's ear the pianist sounds either rather drunk, half-asleep or both, only hitting half his notes right, while all Clayton can hear is the sad, sad lack of any guitars. To the others, though, well it just sets the mood perfectly.

So here you all are, this is the Pianola's dive, or so you're told. You've come this far. What now?
Do you belly up to the bar, scowl, and shout out your intent to join said crook's little band? Do you inquire more discreetly, with a knowing wink at the bartender? Do you just sit, watch the comings-and-goings and try getting a feel for things yourself?
Or am I just talkin' out my ass here and you've got something completely different in mind...?

[Tiruin]

"Beautiful place, aye?"

Aerie moved towards the bartender, after nodding to the general direction of those who came with her, and leaned on the counter.

"Fancy place ye got 'ere. Any news about what's going on for the people? Any...hmm

"Rumors on Outlaws?"

She tossed her scarf over her shoulder nonchalantly, and looked the man in the eye - he was truly concentrating on polishing the inside of that tankard.

Speak to Bartender.

[wolfchild]

Jacob could not shake his habits from a lifetime of grifting, he ordered a drink and sat back, watching the goings on and observing people gauging their moods and motivations

[TCM]

Elixas looked around. This dark, lonely bar was familiar territory. Basements, back alleys, Under boardwalks. That's the type of places where transactions occurred. The exceptions were parties, if he knew it was clear, Elixas could sell contraband like hotcakes.

Seeing an opportunity to both earn some green and impress the gang, Elixas slid up to the drunks at the bar. "Hey fellas' you feeling down? I feel you. Job, wife, kids, whatever man. But you can't just drink booze forever. You need stronger stuff." Elixas pulls open his suit jacket, revealing a row of small packages taped to the inside. "Chinese herb, one try and you'll be high forever man! 25 a pop." He devilishy grinned.

Show off to the gang by making a deal.

[NRDL]

"This ought to be interesting."

Sit down in a corner, and observe all the happenings and shenanigans in the room.

[agentorangesoda]

"Now this is my kinda dig, man! But it's missin somethin..."

Clayton waits for the right moment to join the house band with the melodic stylings of acoustic geetar