A Day Of Faces (12 page)

External Conflicts:
Parents want her to have a well paid, powerful job in business. She just wants to join an aid convoy, or something, man.

Notes:
Squamata: poison dreads.

Marvin ‘Marv’ Thermivore

Role in Story:
Becomes part of the Scooby Gang.

Occupation:
Dropped out of high school, now doing odd jobs to support his parents.

Physical Description:
Tall, dark skinned, sharp features. Wears sunglasses during the day.

Personality:
Lively, witty, confident. Not afraid to speak his mind. Takes no shit, but gives none either.

Habits/Mannerisms:
Talking to cute girls (but never quite getting anywhere). Staring off into space (due to heat vision).

Background:
Born to working class parents. Dad injured in an industrial accident, now needs constant support. Mum suffering from early onset dementia. Sister younger and studying best she can, with Marv’s support. It’s up to Marv to support everyone.

Internal Conflicts:
Has so many dreams. Can’t pursue any of them. He inherently intrudes on people’s privacy, whether he wants to or not.

External Conflicts:
Stuck in a situation he can’t get out of. But he’s the kind of guy who will stick at it to the bitter end, because he loves his family.

Notes:
Thermal - so he has heat vision.

Kay’s dad

Role in Story:
Antagonist for the first half of Arc 1.

Occupation:
Recently made redundant from a mindless city council role.

Physical Description:
He’s a rodentia - mouse-like, in other words. Furry. Cute ears.

Personality:
He’s nothing like his cute appearance. He’s violent, abusive, short tempered.

Habits/Mannerisms:
Blames everything and everybody for his own problems and shortcomings. Especially blames Kay for halting his career/prospects.

Background:
Bullied as a child (as were many rodentia), always found it hard to be taken seriously in the workplace. Subservient at work, but his home is his castle - and he rules it with an iron fist.

Internal Conflicts:
Always wanted to be more. Thought having a son would also give him a future. Instead he had a squamata girl. Feels like everything always goes wrong. Life is unfair.

External Conflicts:
Can’t hold down a job. Abusive relationship with his wife.

Notes:
Most rodentia have no particular unique skills.

Kay’s mum

Role in Story:
Minimal role, but informs Kay’s situation.

Occupation:
Housewife.

Physical Description:
Rodentia, like Kay’s dad - albeit a different type.

Personality:
Drifting. Very subservient to Kay’s dad. Goes through each day without any real purpose.

Habits/Mannerisms:
Alcoholic. Depressive.

Background:
Happy but sheltered childhood. Met Kay’s dad when he was younger and nicer. That relationship progressively soured and turned into one of domestic violence. Unable to extricate herself from her situation. Has no agency.

Internal Conflicts:
Has no way out of her situation, so instead sinks into the bottle.

External Conflicts:
Physically abusive husband.

Notes:
Her lack of agency and drive had a direct impact on Kay, who strives to be the opposite.

Wynton Simons

Role in Story:
Mysterious tangential character, injected halfway through Arc 1 in a narrative break.

Occupation:
Unclear - some kind of research/analytical role.

Physical Description:
Average height, glasses, unremarkable. Human.

Personality:
As a younger man he had a streak of anti-authority, but is now entirely absorbed into the status quo and the realities of every day work. He still tries to maintain an ethical outlook on life.

Habits/Mannerisms:
Sardonic. A little distant from his colleagues. World-weary.

Background:
Has a wife and a young infant child.

Internal Conflicts:
Want to change his life, get a new job, do something that ignites some passion, but can’t find a way to make it happen.

External Conflicts:
Surrounded by colleagues he finds annoying in an organisation that makes him uncomfortable.

Notes:
The name is a slight (non-relevant) nod to the villainous character in Deus Ex.

Holt

Role in Story:
Largely mysterious and threatening character in Arc 1.

Occupation:
Unclear - some kind of mercenary or soldier.

Physical Description:
Tall, broad-shouldered. Heavily scarred face. He’s seen some action.

Personality:
Cold, pragmatic, unemotional, calculating.

Habits/Mannerisms:
Utter lack of empathy.

Background:
Unknown for now.

Internal Conflicts:
Holt doesn’t do internal conflict.

External Conflicts:
Anything which gets in his way.

Notes:
Holt’s appearance in Arc 1 should raise more questions than it answers.

LOCATION NOTES

Perlyn

Role in Story:
The city setting for Arc 1. An odd mash-up of 1940s Los Angeles and British culture.

Related Characters:
Cal, Kay, Marv, Rachel

Unique Features:
Government is located here. City is dominated by the Aviary, a huge tower containing all the apparatus of government. The top floors are accessible only to those with wings. The rest of the city spins out from this central point.

Description:
Very zoned, with clear areas for different classes, and even genotypes. Culturally not very integrated.

Sights:
The Aviary, towering over everything. Sunny, clear days. Sprawling suburbs. Parks.

Sounds:
Trams, malls.

Smells:
Vehicle exhaust. Sewers in the summer.

Notes:
This should feel deliberately a bit ‘off’.

Lecture hall

Role in Story:
Where we first meet Kay. She’s a student: this is where she spends her days.

Related Characters:
Rachel, classmate

Season:
Summer term

Unique Features:
Designed like a classic 1950s American school. The kind of school Marty’s parents go to in Back to the Future.

Description:
The lecture hall is more reminiscent of classic British university lecture halls, as you might imagine to find in Oxford or Cambridge. Wood panelled, raised seating areas like in a theater, large blackboard with desk at the front.

Sights:
Many teachers are 360s, drawn to the job by their heightened awareness of their surroundings.

Sounds:
Students. Giggling. Teaching. Snoring.

Smells:
Students. Boys not quite understanding how deodorant works.

Notes:
Not a hugely important part of the story - unlikely that we’ll return to it down the line.

The Black Jasmine

Role in Story:
Where Kay first meets Marv and sees Cal in action, plus extra introduction to the world.

Related Characters:
Marv, Cal, Rachel, Kay

Season:
Party time.

Unique Features:
Fire escape running from ground to roof. Hidden back-rooms.

Description:
A club known specifically for its tolerant attitudes. Indie/hipster-ish.

Sights:
Dark, neon, lasers. Dancing. Fornication.

Sounds:
Indie. Gothy. Industrial.

Smells:
Sweat. Booze. Smoke.

Notes:
Like a non-shitty version of the Waterfront in Norwich.

Kay’s house

Role in Story:
Kay lives here. Major location in Arc 1, and serves a key plot point in Arc 2.

Related Characters:
Marv, Cal, Rachel, Kay, Kay’s parents

Unique Features:
Backs onto a graveyard.

Description:
One of a row of identical terraced houses, with tiny front gardens but long and thin back gardens. Shed at the bottom of the garden.

Sights:
Dad sitting in darkened lounge watching TV. Mum keeping out of the way. Kay staying in her bedroom.

Sounds:
Constant TV. If the TV isn’t on, there’s arguing.

Smells:
Alcohol. Overcooked food.

Notes:
This place should feel very normal, even as events become increasingly unusual.

Records office

Role in Story:
Public records building, where Kay finds out/corroborates key plot information

Related Characters:
Cal, Kay

Unique Features:
Large, library-like. Important to know that Locque is a pre-computer society, much like the 1940s/50s. Records are all paper/microfiles.

Description:
Large building with a single floor for public access, stacked full of shelves and desks for working at. Numerous machines for trawling through newspaper clippings.

Sights:
Researchers poring over records at the various desks. Away from the desks it’s all a bit dark, dingy, brown and old.

Sounds:
Low murmurs and occasional coughs/sneezes.

Smells:
Musty. Books. Paper. Ink.

Notes:
This location is unremarkable itself, but it is useful for delivering some exposition in a more interesting manner.

The Facility

Role in Story:
The cluster of buildings on Earth responsible for the dimension bridge and implementing much of the Locque experiments.

Related Characters:
Wynton Simons, Cal, Kay, Marv, Holt

Unique Features:
Huge warehouse in the centre known as ‘the bunker’, containing the zero-point turbine which runs the dimension bridge. Nearby is the enormous mock-Aviary structure.

Description:
Aside from the bunker and the mock-Aviary, the compound looks like a fairly standard industrial complex. Heavy security, though, with tall fences.

Sights:
Hundreds of employees. But it’s no big secretive place - it’s just a mundane job for them.

Sounds:
It’s a scientific place. The sound of concentration and (unethical) innovation.

Smells:
Clinical. Medical. Office space. Grease.

Notes:
This is where the Arc 2 showdown kicks off.

Marv’s place

Role in Story:
Marv’s house! Cal and Kay hang out there after the events of ‘Nurture’.

Related Characters:
Marv, Cal, Kay

Unique Features:
Large basement, which is basically Marv’s private zone. It’s his refuge.