[CWS Calendar 2013] Day 27 - Gang of Characters
Task: Sit down and invent your own "gang" for a story. tell us about all the characters involved.
Merriweather Franklin - Gambler (former lawyer)
Britsih, born in India during his father's work for the British Raj, and later schooled in London. He came to the US in 1867 with his father and sister. A fight with his father lead him to leave Boston and settle down on the West coast. 1871 he opened a small (one man) law firm in Frisco and made good money during the gold and silver rush, filing claims. At this time he first got in contact with games of chance in the local saloons. His interests changed, and a few years later he closed down his firm in order to travel through the country, and see things for himself, that he only ever had heard about before.
Willemena “Willy” Coogan - Kopfgeldjägerin
When Willy was three years old, her daddy taught her how to shoot. When she was five, he gave her her first gun. When she was ten, a group of marauding bandits killed her father and stole his cattle. When she was eleven, she had hunted down every single one of them and collected the bounty on their heads. Now, Willy is 21 and she has just bought a new gun...
Styles Neville Dowson - Gesetzeshüter
Styles Dowson - don't dare to mention his middle name! - is a wanderer. A former farmhand, he grew up in the vastness of rural Iowa. It doesn't matter where he goes though, he always ends up being called upon to act as law: at various points in his life he has been Sheriff, US Marshal, Deputy, Vigilante, Bodyguard and Indian Agent. There is just something about him, that makes people come to him with their problems. Most of the time he sees it as his own personal curse. But he has a highly developed sense of justice, so he always ends up helping.
Other characters that could be on-and-off-parts of the gang:
Spencer “Spence” Cormack - Cowboy
Spence is a young and hot headed cowboy. He reminds Styles about himself at a younger age. He seems carefree and naïve at first, but he carries a dark secret in his past: His father is Kenyon Cormack, one of the most stone cold killers of the West.
Virginia Franklin - Lawyer in Boston
Merriweather's older twin sister is exactly two minutes older than him and isn't afraid of rubbing that into his face. Continuously. She is working in their father's Boston firm, and is quite happy there. Even though her father is putting more and more pressure on her regarding marriage. She has a fiancé now, but she doesn't actually plan on marrying him any time soon. She knows that a marriage will mean the end to her career.
Raymond “Ray” Allen Alderslade - Schriftsteller
Ray is a writer from England, who came to the US in order to "breathe the atmosphere", to write about proud Indians, wild shoot-outs, cattle tracks, and the Wild West. Right now, he is travelling through the continent, collecting stories everwhere he goes.
He talks with a broad East End accent and wear a bowler hat. Usually, people act around him as if he is an idiot, even if he most certainly is not. Ray is an incredibly good shot, and very well versed in a myriad of areas.
Ellen “Elle” Blanche Ferguson - Hotelier / Love Interest
She owns a hotel in Crowheart, where Styles has recently become Sheriff. She looks sceptically at the current going ons in town, and is seriously contemplating to run for mayor herself. She is a widow - her husband never returned from the civil war, God knows where he is right now - and has recently developed an interest in the strapping new Sheriff in town.
Professor Augustus Granville - Scientist and mad inventor
A stereotypical scientist, who is a much too great genius for his own health. He build weapons during the civil war - for both sides, as he was kidnapped a lot during those years. The stress back then was not good for his already declining sanity. Nowadays, he spend his time developing plans for increasingly fantastic devices and inventions. None of them has ever worked as it should...
He has a granddaughter named Violet, who is the only person that can bear being around him full time.