Mansions of Madness: Full Character Disclosures

To all my players for this game, feel free to place all your expanded character backstories here so folks get to know them a bit.

Joe Diamond is a private investigator with a reputation for handling cases that
everyone else regards as supernatural nonsense. He's thorough in his investigations,
and he's no one to be trifled with. His services have been employed by the wealthy
as well as those down on their luck. No case is too large, too small, too strange,
or too dangerous. In his experience, things start getting nasty right when you
start reaching the truth, and that's exactly where he likes to be.




'Sucks to be broke', Joe thought as he tossed the paper towards the trashcan. He came close, that was good enough.

"Ahhhh.. you'd think I'd be used to it by now..." he mumbled as he lit up another cigarette. The bills came in, but the clients didn't. Not lately.

Briefly he considered catching the new Douglas Fairbanks flick, but decided to save one of his few remaining nickles for something else.

Joe used to work for the police, but that time was long past. Seems they didn't really like his attitude... and he didn't care for their paperwork. First came suspension, then worse. Usually that worked just fine for him, but some days he still missed the regular paycheck.

He opened the drawers of his desk. The left one held his old revolver. The right one held an antique flask with a nip of whiskey. The kind of stuff that you could only get at speakeasies now days... or with a prescription from a friendly doctor. Most of the guys on the force had 'prescriptions'. He emptied both drawers and shoved the contents into his pockets.


"Where ya heading Joe?" Susan questioned with her typical impertinence

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Out." Was his only response as slipped his overcoat on. Suzie was a good secretary. Someone he'd helped when he just started this private gig. She was good with numbers and a heck of typer, though frankly Joe thought, she was a little too aware of how important she was to keeping this business (such as it was) afloat. Still she worked cheap, and looked great in heels. More often then not he wasn't 100% sure which he kept her around for.

"Be back later, Take any messages doll." he muttered as usual as he stepped out into the street. The sun was setting soon, and the shadows were starting to get longer. 'City ain't the way it used to be', he thought to himself. There was a time he thought he knew all the answers... Lately however, his cases were getting weirder and weirder.

The kind of crap they used to laugh out of the precinct. Missing people, ghosts, sounds in the dark... Nutcases is what he used to call them, but beggars can't be choosers and rent seemed like it was always due. Not to mention that he wanted to keep Susan paid and content. No telling what her replacement would look like.

So Joe took every case that was offered, no matter how stupid, no matter how weird. Every case closed too. It may not be the most ethical, but Joe Diamond wasn't above telling his crazier clients whatever they wanted to hear to pay the bill. Sometimes the answers were out there... more then once now there was nothing that made any sense.

Worst part was he was starting to get a reputation. 'Turns no case away', looked great in the paper... but his contacts were starting to laugh behind his back. Couldn't really blame them. If the situations were reveresed... if he was still on the force, and one of his buddies was treating this crap like a real Investigation, He'd have gotten a good laugh. That he didn't mean he liked it one bit.

He hoped that didn't keep the normal clients away... Be nice to bust up an honest kidnapping, maybe a diamond heist. Any diamond he saw without looking at a bill or the front door would be a nice change.

As the last student exited his office, Professor Walter closed the door behind him and very quietly locked the door. He turned off the cloying overhead light and turned on the dim desk lamp, so its luminescence did not betray his presence to any other students or colleagues who still remained in the building this late in the evening.

He removed a bottle from a desk drawer and poured himself a drink. Pulling out a pair of keys from a pocket sewn inside his jacket, he unlocked a large, solid wooden cabinet. Inside were a variety of valuable things placed there exclusively to distract a casual thief or a desperate student. Labeled answer keys to his exams, several bottles of expensive liquor, and a spare wallet filled with a week’s salary all occupied easily viewed spaces within the cabinet.

He moved all these items out of the way and pressed a board on the bottom of the cabinet, releasing a latch that freed the plank. Inside was a small safe bolted to the floor. He inserted the key and spun the combination lock, finally accessing the contents.

Anyone intruder who had gone to such length to penetrate the safe at this point would be sorely disappointed, as the safe contained nothing but a collection of notebooks filled with the Professor’s own cribbed writing, as well a small number of very old books not written in English. After making sure the blinds were closed one last time, he removed the contents of the safe and spread them across his desk. This would be his evening’s work.

He took his first sip and began the obscure translation of the page in front of him. With some luck he might be able to finish the page before the necessity of sleep intervened halfway through the night. Though this particular page seemed to be dealing with the frivolous brewing of a pleasure-enhancing elixir, no page could be skipped. Later pages in the volume might refer back to this page, perhaps even in the form of an obscure allusion. This lesson was learned the hard way, as this was perhaps the fourth time he had attempted translating this particular page, each time sure that he had been successful, only to discover later references that rendered his earlier understandings invalid. Such was diligence necessary to translate a language not spoken by humanity for centuries, or longer. At least, not by the portion of humanity that made it into the history books.

While the front of his mind began to occupy itself with the task of the night, the back of it began to wander, as it usually did in the quiet hours, to the events of that one night that had turned his enjoyable hobby into a relentless, joyless, nightly grind.

He had forgotten some papers he needed for a meeting in the morning. As was habit, had been walking home that warm summer night. Returning to the now quiet campus, he was momentarily given pause by the flashlight beam emanating from his office. Suspecting an ambitious student or perhaps a prank, he peered the edge of the window. He suddenly doubted the older, dishevilled man carefully examining the antiquated titles on his bookshelf. He watched as one of the books was pulled from its location. His curiousity piqued, he waited till the man exited the building and followed him through the streets for several miles, to a dilapidated house on a sparsely populated street.

After watching the house for a half hour he decided whether to summon the police. He was just about to leave before being interrupted by a long guttural scream. He froze for a many long minutes, though no sound followed. He then made the choice that would dictate the course of his life- he opened the door and walked inside to reclaim his book. Picking up a solid candlestick from a hallway table, he found nothing living in the empty house.

He never found the thief. He did find his book. It was located in the basement, in a room filled with arcane symbols all over the walls, symbols he had never seen before. He also found pieces of the thief scattered around the room, in a empty house that no one had exited. An indescribable stench filled the air. The feeling of dread that suffused him had him moving for the exit when he heard the front door open. A quick escape through the cellar door granted him egress. He took refuge behind a tree down the street, and in short order saw three figures leave and the house erupt in a blaze shortly after.

Firmly convinced that he saw evidence of the wildest nightmares that were detailed in those manuscript-terrors he had thought to be simple myths- he now also knows that there are at least some humans complicit in attempting to bring these ancient horrors back to life. For now his studies and efforts are a solitary effort, unsure as he is about who he can trust with these revelations. Sooner or later he fears his must take more active measures and find some trusted friends- for he knows those men who left that house ablaze that night will continue to seek to perfect their techniques to bring those things here.