Deadlands Character Sheet
| Name:
| Judith Beecher
|
|---|
| Age:
| 29
|
|---|
| Occupation:
| Undertaker
|
|---|
Traits and Aptitudes
| Mental
| Physical
|
|---|
| Cognition
| 1d8
| Deftness
| 3d10
|
|---|
|
|
| Knowledge
| 2d12
| Nimbleness
| 2d10
|
|---|
|
|
| Academia: Occult
| 1
|
| Area Knowledge: Home County
| 2
|
| Disguise
| 1
|
| Language: Native Tongue
| 2
|
| Medicine: General
| 3
|
| Trade: Undertaking
| 5
|
| Trade: Taxidermy
| 1
|
| Climbin'
| 1
|
| Fightin': Knife
| 2
|
| Fightin': Trocar
| 2
|
| Horse Ridin'
| 2
|
| Sneak
| 3
|
| Teamster
| 3
|
| Pace
| 10
| Size
| 6
|
|---|
| Wind
| 16
| Grit
| 0
|
|---|
Shootin' Irons & Such
| Weapon
| Shots
| RoF
| Range
| Damage
|
|---|
| Colt Lightning
| 6
| 2
| 10
| 2d6
|
| Rupertus Pepperbox
| 8
| 1
| 5
| 2d4
|
Hand-to-Hand Weapons
| Weapon
| Defense
| Speed
| Damage
|
|---|
| Fist
| -
| 1
| STR
|
Edges & Hindrances
| Loyal (-3)
|
| Pacifist (-3)
|
| Habit (-1): Smells like embalming fluid
|
| Belongin's (4): Undertaker's shop, assistant: Paskel Taylor, 2 horses: Toby and Rastus, hearse
|
| Purty (1)
|
Equipment
| Colt Lightning $13
|
| Colt Ammo $2
|
| Rupertus Pepperbox $6
|
| Pepperbox Ammo $2
|
Background
Pay: $100 Monthly
Age: 29 (In town 4 years)
Born in Dubuque in the then-territory of Iowa in 1848, the youngest of
six children. Three of those six survived the cholera epidemic of
1852,
which also took the life of her father, James, one of the town's
doctors. Judith's mother Louise moved herself and her children across
town into her brother's mortuary.
A fastidious and undemonstrative lifelong bachelor, Uncle Stephen
nevertheless provided well for his sister and her children and took
them
on as helpers and apprentices. Bernard, the eldest, took over the shop
as his uncle's health failed. He runs Russel's Funeral Home in
Dubuque,
a stonefaced man with the eyes of a boy who has seen too much death for
it to touch him anymore. Ambrose, the middle child, left to fight for
the Union against his mother's wishes and has not been heard from for
five years.
Judith, too young to remember much of her father or a time when the
mood
at home was not somber, began to feel boxed in by the predictability of
a small city and life in close quarters with her family. Reading a
trade publication one evening, she spotted a business for sale in the
Arizona Territory - building, equipment and name, even a clerk on
retainer who'd been apprenticed to the late proprietor. The price was
surprisingly affordable, and with her uncle and brother's help she was
able to put cash on the barrelhead, finding herself at 25 the sole
owner
of the Vulture City Mortuary.
Judith enjoys the bustle of a growing town; strangers passing over
unpaved streets, kicking up all the dust of the living; open horizons
and open opportunities. And after all the chaos outside, at home with
the dead, she can be careful and precise. The dead have all the
time in
the world.
Worst Nightmare
The cemetery in early morning, the lightest kiss dew on the rocks
amidst
the grass as the sun's low angle blinds an eastward glance. The dull
smell of dry soil with a slight bitter tang of shovel-bruised weeds.
The new grave holds no horror, no trace of corruption, just a
freshly-ploughed furrow waiting blandly to be sown.
On a rugged cart, its only ceremonial distinction a scuffed coat of
gloss black paint, rests a coffin of fresh-cut pine, beads of amber
resin oozing slowly from the young wood in the direct sunlight. A
faint
aroma of balsam recalls the funerals of Egypt, the preparations more
mystic than chemic that had been old when Babylon was new, but
dissipates in the clear air.
No mourners are in attendance, no minister presides. Facing the task as
practically as a team of farmhands, the pallbearers lower the bright
pine box on a brace of stout hempen rope. A sudden jerk - a hand's
slip,
a misplaced foot - and the coffin lurches and falls, dashed against the
wall of the grave. A corner dents inward, the nails cutting through
the
wet wood. A moment passes while the box settles and the men shift
their
balance for another approch, then the white pine boards split like torn
linen as the liveliest corruption bursts forth.
Freed by chance, it ruptures gleefully out into the sunlight. Beyond
scattered birds and the stifled gasps of the pallbearers, the only
sound
is the stridor of swelling tissue - of muscle on sinew straining, of
flesh stretching, tearing and exposing damp black chitin to the air.
The putrescence bubbles and seethes, sending out hot wafts of the
wet-dog smell of old blood as it continues to expand. At one horrified
glance it seems rigid and insectoid; in the blink of an eye it puffs
into fungoid polyps, then elongates wetly into vast, branching
tentacles, which seem themselves to be inflating - if only it would
stay still long enough to comprehend!
