Hmm... I'm bored, so here's a couple of character background sketches while I'm too tired to sleep.
1: Death Metal -
Allysa "Acid" Raynes was born in Camden, New Jersey. A city solidly in the hands of the Rappers and a murder hive that rivals even Detroit itself, it was no place for a girl to be raised. Her family was poor, scratching out a living running drugs inland from the Shore, since they had the fortune to own an old military truck. Some people said her grandfather had stolen it during the War, but sixty years later the beast still ran, and nobody really cared where it came from. Her father spent most of his earnings just buying bullets.
He was captured by a wandering Preacher, who executed him on the street while his family watched. Allysa was twelve years old. The next day her father had scheduled a run to the Shore. She fired up the Beast, prepared to make the run herself. Her mother objected, but Allysa wouldn't hear of it. Instead her mother manned the gunnery pod - formerly Allysa's post - and the girls made the run together.
Allysa discovered she had the Spark when she was sixteen. After four years of leading her family, she had gathered a small following, most of them older than herself, but a scrabbling of kids, too. When she discovered her speeches had real magic in them, she realized it meant she would have to join one of the Factions. None of them would stand for a Wilder, and certainly not in a Rapper haven like Camden.
But Allysa had no talent for rap. Her speeches were too epic, her words too free of profanity. She could incite people to brutal acts of fanaticism, and inspired almost unquestioning loyalty. She was just the sort of person Father Destien Kincaide was looking for. Just the sort of person Death Metal needed. With a little training, she could learn to harness their breed of power. The Abyss already loved her, and she already clung to no particular morality.
She searched her soul. She spoke with her mother, and her other trusted advisors. Ultimately, left with no other options, she accepted. She donned the black leather robe of a Death Metal Minister and swore herself to apprenticeship under Father Kincaide. In time, she did learn to call upon the unholy fury of Death Metal, to conduct the dread rituals that were a purposeful mockery of the Masses clung to by P&W. Her penchant for violence made her fit right in in Camden, and she rarely had a problem hiding her cell in the murder capital of the east coast.
Now seventeen, she is nearly done with her Apprenticeship, ready to accept the title of Mother. She does not drive the Beast any more, having handed off the fund-raising operations of her cell to a man named Spider, whom she has in her magical thrall. Instead she has trained herself as a sniper, and takes a particular pleasure in assassinating other Singers.
2: Country -
There are few things that lift a man's spirits more than his son following in his footsteps. That was the feeling Garth Waylon Duff's father had the day he was born. The boy - second of three children in the family - was practically born with a banjo in his hands, and took to hard work like nobody's business. He could string a banjo by the time he was five, and play it at the Fair before he was seven.
He never took much to cars and trucks. He could drive okay, but he didn't know a wrench from a monkey under the hood. Oh well. With fingers and a voice like his, he hardly needed to. Whenever the ravages of the age passed through his home town of Murfreesborough, KY, he rode around in the back of an old pickup truck, plucking his banjo and singin' the healing into wounded men. In between fights, he'd lead the workin' songs while he plowed the land, burned up debris, or sat next to the fire tappin' out bullets in little hand-held moulds.
But he was always most famous for his music. He had the Shine in 'im, just like his daddy, and a heart o' gold for it to shine from. G-W's a family man now, 25 years old, married to his teen sweetie Gracie-Ann, with two kids and a third on the way, and it looks like his li'l girl is lookin' to take after him, the way she's always patchin' up her little brother and her cousins. O' course, the guys'll never stop ribbin' him, what with Gracie-Ann bein' a better shot with a rifle 'n him, but he's got the Shinin', and there ain't nothin' funny about that.
3: Classical -
Chaya - just Chaya, thank you - was born to a life of privilege in Upper Manhattan. Her grandfather had been a weapons-maker, and had turned a small fortune during the War. Her mother was a trained violinist, and when the Classicists established their stations, she enlisted at once, and rose through their ranks at a modest but appreciable pace. Chaya herself was born when her mother was at the height of her talent. Some say the woman played her violin even after her labor pains began. This apocryphal performance was to be her last concert, for she died giving birth to her only child.
Chaya carried with her the guilt of her mother's death all her life. She is haunted by it, and it reflects in the mellow, dirgelike quality of her playing. She carries still her mother's violin, which she has restrung innumerable times, refinished once a year since she was 13, and completely rebuilt only once. Those closest to her whisper in secret that the varnish of the violin includes an infusion of her sainted mother's blood.
Now a woman of thirty, she is in full command of her family's fortune. She has refused to marry and has birthed no children. Her few friends regret that her Talent will not be passed on. She travels alone in a stylish but somewhat dated ground-car from her home to the Station every other night, to play her mournful notes over the airwaves. Every piece she plays is an original composition of hers, by her own insistance. Every year on her birthday, she plays from sunset until dawn, breaking only to have healing notes sung to her bleeding fingers by a trusted friend - it is a talent she never mastered.
Her ghostly violin-playing cannot be called inspiring. It is neither transporting nor uplifting, but those who hear it are filled with a kind of fatalistic resolve. They have been known to linger in battle against overwhelming odds, calm even in the face of death. Her Listeners have been known to work tirelessly through the night of her birthday, even at complicated or exhausting tasks, only to collapse from exhaustion the moment she stops playing.
