Mad Jack

Player: Barbara Akers

Email: BAkers5915@aol.com

Age: 38

Character: Mad Jack

Nature: Storyteller, Human, with precognitive ability

Age: appears in his late 20s...could be closer to 1500 years, most spent on the Fey side of things.

Appearance: Jack is tall for his time period. Almost 5’ 10”, 170 pounds, wiry. He has long blond hair, usually 1-2 days growth of beard, light blue-gray eyes. Pretty good looking if he took an interest in his appearance.

Abilities/Weaknesses: normal human strength, speed, etc. Jack was referred to as a Seer. He truly saw the future. But only disasters, deaths, wars...he’s the type of person who may say it’s not his problem, but still step in to help someone. He’s also protected somewhat by the Voice he hears...the ghost...Jack’s greatest weakness is the bottle. He drinks to mute the visions...it’s rare that a day goes by without him reaching for the bottle.

History: Jack (not what his real name was, but the pronunciation is close enough) was found in England almost 3 years ago, wandering the streets of Brighton, confused. He couldn’t be understood as his ‘English’ was so old that only a vampire from his century of birth might have understood him. Sent to a hospital he was eventually diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. While there, he started to learn the King’s English, which didn’t take too long for several reasons: he was a storyteller and learned to memorize what he heard quickly since there were few books in existence back then; and his native language was the forerunner of modern English.

Eventually, Jack escaped from the loonybin and managed to make his way to the US where he wandered up the East coast until finally settling in Sanctuary. (He has a green card...got it as a favor from a man he helped...had one of his dreams and stopped the guy against going into the very bank he’d seen in his nightmare. The bank was being robbed that very instant and everyone in the lobby was gunned down by the robbers. The man had connections and got him a green card). Jack works at the Crow’s Nest, washing dishes.

If you delve back further into Jack’s past, way back, you find he was the person that gave rise to the story of Thomas the Rhymer. And he’d tell you that story was a crock of shit. It was so twisted with time that it wasn’t recognizable as to what truly happened. A brief biography of Jack’s life...

The third son of a landed minor noble of the time, Jack was happy to work on the land. Until the day he fell from his horse near a pond, cracking his head on the stones. His life became sheer hell from that point on...by his way of thinking. First off came the dreams...nightmares really. Of bad things to come. He never saw happy futures, just deaths and torture, pain and agony. Then came the Voice in his head. It constantly nagged at him for attention, making suggestions, advising, arguing with him until he actually spoke to it aloud. This of course brought unwanted attention to Jack. People in his father’s own household began to whisper behind their hands about the poor, crazy young master. Wasn’t it a shame. And then the Voice began to manifest itself physically. Never when anyone else might see these instances. No. Only when Jack was alone or no one was looking. Things moved, like a chair he was about to sit in. He’d trip for no reason. Get knocked down. Especially if he didn’t listen to the Voice. Finally, Jack couldn’t take the veiled looks, the whispers, and left home, becoming a travelling storyteller. The Voice may have been an annoyance, but it had a large repertoire of tales to pass on to Jack.

Jack also took to the bottle. It dimmed the nightmares somewhat. He always had a flask of cheap wine or ale on his travels. And in his travels, he often crossed paths with the various fey that stepped into his world. They were much more numerous then. And bold. There were times he’d hid in fear at the wail of a beansidhe, or run for his life from the Gabriel Hounds. He learned how to defend himself from them. He learned the common folk’s ways of dealing with them. And the Voice was a constant source of expertise on just about anything...even when it was totally clueless, it always came up with comments. Eventually, Jack’s luck with the Fey ran out. He crossed paths with a young human woman bearing the unborn child of one of the Fair Folk. Trying to convince her not to seek the father out-for in Jack’s experience they didn’t care one wit for Humankind-he ended up escorting her for her own safety. Jack isn’t sure just what happened exactly, but he ended up opposing the father of the child and his relatives...and Jack’s tongue was sharp. They didn’t appreciate his interference, but they knew of his storytelling skill...the lesser Fey had hidden themselves and listened many a time unbeknownst to Jack, so they punished him by making him their court storyteller. The Voice insists that Jack got off light and should be thankful, but Jack is of a different mind on that count. He was kept alive, passing time differently from the mortal world and is a man truly lost in time.

Now he lives in Sanctuary, a town rife with Fey, Vampires, Ghosts...all sorts of strange and unnatural beasties....and Jack still drinks....still has visions...and still hears the Voice.

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