Guy Raynor

Risen Dead
Mistcut Expellants

Description


~As if Grease had come to life, Guy Raynor swaggers in with a smug grin on his grill. Both hands stay tucked into the pockets of his old, cracked, and weather-beaten leather jacket. The lean if pale-skinned Caucasian can’t have yet made it past his early 20s. His sense of style is weak but at least it’s fairly perennial: he sports an oil-blotched wife beater under the jacket and a pair of scuffed blue jeans tucked into a pair of well-worn Doc Marten boots. Dark-brown hair often flows wild and unkempt, but he will comb it back smoothly once in a while. The eyes, as always, give Guy away. They ought to be a hunky deep brown, but they’ve grown cold and hard…so hard they’re almost black. Maybe Guy was once a heartthrob rebel, but now he’s too thin, too anemic, and too angry.~

OOC: Appearance 2

"Live hard, die young, and keep a good-looking corpse!"

History


Motor City

Detroit, Michigan, used to be the happening town for automobile production of all sort. That fed the city and kept vocational experts like Jerry Raynor, an electrician, considered middle class. He could afford to raise a family with his wife, Miriam. Guy was born in ’65 and his little brother only a couple years later. Their modest two-bedroom home meant Guy had to treat his kid bro like a roommate. And they never quite got along, picking on each other and ruining each other’s fun at every turn.

The suburban home in which Guy dwelled didn’t land the youth in a bad neighborhood. It even lacked much of the pollution and congestion the city proper suffered. Guy made up for Stan’s dickery with good friends. They numbered few but remained loyal throughout his youth. His nominally Christian family hauled him to church but it never connected. Instead, like most American youths Guy developed most of his moral foundation from watching TV.

When he wasn’t watching the fabulous sitcom line up of the mid to late-70s, Guy was working lousy jobs – fast food, bagging groceries. Almost every dime he earned went to his first car. By sixteen, he insisted on buying a Camaro. He even afforded a dirt bike. Once he had the hot rods, he had girlfriends galore. None of them were ever serious. But the Camaro was for show. The dirt bike was his real hobby, and he went cruising in the hills every chance he got.

Cool as Fonzie

After skimming through high school, Guy scored a job as a mechanic in a local bodyshop. Stan went off to college and the two never really spoke again. Guy was focused on work, partying with what little spare cash he earned, and cruising on his motorcycle. He purchased his first Harley motorcycle when he was 21. He tuned and juiced the bike up even more over the next few years. All the while, he turned out another dollar every day. Once he had enough cash, he planned to cut and run, just cruise the highways like the Marlboro Man.

For months, Guy just cruised all over creation, living the high life. He had no plans or ambitions for the future. When his cash ran out, he planned to just work hard for a few months, and then head back out again. Naturally, his money ran out fast and he parked it in the Kansas City area. He scored a job as a mechanic again.

It was here he met Ruth Rawn, the perfect girl. She loved motorcycles and wanted to live a wild life on the road, no cares or responsibilities. And yes, she was hot. She had all her teeth and only one little tattoo on her…well, none of your business. Guy and Ruth were two peas in a pod. They spent a year working hard and saving their money together. Their relationship deepened to love, and Guy was psyching himself up to propose.

Cry Little Sister

Guy and Ruth went out to drink and carouse with their friends at the infamous Moonshade Bar in Smithville. Ruth worked there as a waitress, in fact. Most of the people there were decent enough. Then the Grubbs Gang moved into the area in 1990. This group of motorcycle punks began to hang out at the bar, too. They were a rough crowd – some of them brothers, others just pals and criminals of the same cloth. Billy Grubbs took an instant dislike to Guy because he took a liking to Ruth. The Grubbs enjoyed messing with the pretty waitresses.

When they refused to relent on harassing Ruth, Guy stood up for his girlfriend. Amused, Billy challenged Guy to a motorcycle race a la Lost Boys. And it was more like that movie than Guy could have imagined. The Grubbs Gang was actually a posse of Brujah thugs and their ghouls. Of course, being a vampire did little to improve motorcycle skills, and Guy zipped by Billy.

Then Guy made the last mistake of his life. He mocked Billy. He called the thug a poser, a loser. The gang fell on him mercilessly, beating him senseless. Their viciousness was beyond anything he ever anticipated. Ruth’s screams fell on deaf ears. The bikers chained Guy and Ruth to their bikes and roared off, dragging them for miles until they were torn to pieces on the rough road. Their broken bodies were cut free. The cops found their corpses by chance. They were bagged and buried. The girl was sent home to her folks in the city. Guy was just planted in a local state grave.

Reaped

The harsh and brutal nature of his murder twisted Guy’s consciousness in those last moments of life. But even after his breathing stopped his heart kept twisting. Misery and outrage seethed impotently; he couldn’t move. He was stuck in a body bag! And then he was cut free. There was a sudden whoosh of pressure and strange goopy fluid swamped out from around him. He sat up suddenly on his slab, gasping in shock. And Guy knew he was dead. The world was gray. No life existed around him. Quiet, grainy people stood nearby, one of them holding a scalpel with which he clearly cut open Guy’s Caul.

Dunn was his Reaper’s name. This small group explained that they were Awakeners, drawn to his fury and driven emotions. His heart burned brightly through the brackish Caul, promising him the chance to finish his incomplete business with the Skinlands. Guy was told in brief all an Enfant needed to know to survive the vast, unpredictable Underworld.

Speaking of unpredictable: before his mentoring even really began, the Shadowlands’ drab earth erupted with a sudden Nihil and a horde of wild-eyed disfigured Spectres. They were drawn to Guy’s Reaping -– his furious screaming and angry Shadow. The Awakeners were all driven back, and Guy watched in horror as most of them were cut down and sucked into the Underworld’s depths -– Harrowed. Guy fled as the Spectres rampaged, and the short byway leading into the Necropolis proved his escape route.

Riding Out the Storm

The Enfant felt confused and lost except for the shreds of information the Awakeners managed to impart. Naturally, when the first relic Harleys ripped by, he was quite caught up. He signed up with the local Storm Riders gang with no problem, once he proved both his skill actually driving as well as mechanical knowledge. To his delight, that even manifested as ghostly mischief across the Shroud.

After impressing Max Kane, the gang’s unofficial leader, Guy’s afterlife was on relative easy street. The Storm Riders were tough hombres. Nobody messed with them. Even better, they rode in and around a Renegade-controlled necropolis. Sure, Kansas City’s Shadowlands got a little anarchic at times. The Masquers kept an unspoken peace. But it enabled Guy to roar along Byways with his new friends without fear of anything but Oblivion. For the first five years of Guy’s death, he confided an uncertainty with his friends. It wasn’t that he couldn’t accept his death, but that he wanted to…live…more.

That desire to experience thrills and vivacity was what kept Guy at the forefront of brawls and protests anytime the Guilds tried to tighten local “rules”. It also exposed Guy to the terrors wraiths could inflict upon each other without the help of spectres. In one vicious match, Guy suffered the horror of Rend. He dipped into his Shadow’s rage to try and fight back against the powerful Masquer that punished him so. But the Masquer was too strong, and beat Guy into a brutal Harrowing.

Though this Harrowing ravaged Guy’s heart and mind, it also granted him an amazing vision. As he was beaten by a thousand fists and feet in this Harrowing, he managed to keep a hold of his inner will and resiliently survive. That resilience, Guy realized, would help him resist Oblivion. But the best way to survive Oblivion was to escape it, and the Skinlands – life – was the furthest removed from that annihilation. He knew then that he needed to become one of the Risen Dead above all.

No Days Off

Now a Lemure able to stand on his own, Guy returned from the harrowing Tempest and told his friends of his visions. Though they called him a fool, they let him go without issue. They got to keep his relic bike, after all. Guy headed back into Kansas City and sought out Dunn, his Reaper. When he heard that Dunn had fallen to Oblivion, he didn’t even try to lie about what happened on the day of his Reaping. Ferris Black now lead the local Guild mission. The Awakeners promised to accept Guy if he proved his determination and heart on a mission for the Guild.

This little job was espionage: general spying on the Giovanni vampires in Little Italy. In addition to their powers of Necromancy, they had wraith thralls in their service. The Awakeners just asked him to learn whatever he could about the Giovanni havens. It would involve his greatest cunning and caution to avoid detection. Guy didn’t realize that the Guild was also testing his Arcanoi, to prove he knew the basics required to become one of the Walking Dead.

Guy stayed as low and sneaky as he could be. He swallowed his tendencies to act out and be cool like the Fonz. He kept sharp and slipped into the Giovannis’ homes behind their wraithly servants. He memorized titles from the spines of books in the vampires’ libraries. He memorized faces and names. Indeed, he learned more about vampires in general, and began to wonder if his murderers were vampires, too. He doubted they were anything like these “uptown” Giovanni types. The Grubbs still fit the bill, if his memory served right…

When he reported back after two weeks, the Guild lauded his success and welcomed him into its ranks. He was immediately initiated into the training and mysteries to become Risen. It demanded several years of preparation. Guy knew it would be difficult and a constant spiritual juggle. It was something the Guild readied him for with daily meditation and philosophy. The Awakeners had surprising patience for the young ghost, for Guy was admittedly a slow learner. Perhaps they knew he would work it all out and become a great example.

Fearless

So the biker developed all the Arcanoi and esoterica needed to for the action of rebirth. For nine years, Guy was largely locked away in seclusion. He wheeled and dealed with his Shadow, using ploys and advice from the Awakeners to keep the upper hand with his dark side’s mysteries.

Though Guy was largely sequestered in the Awakeners’ mansion Haunt, he was permitted to venture out and experience the Shadowlands. It added contrast and motivation to escape this dreary excuse for an afterlife. One night, while watching the Skinlands’ highway he used to rip up in life, the Grubbs gang passed through! Guy couldn’t resist. He lacked the power yet to take his full revenge. So instead he haunted and harassed the bastards for over a year. The Grubbs were not Giovanni. They suspected a ghost was after them, but they couldn’t do anything about it. Guy managed to chase the monsters out of town, but they swore to return – even if it meant getting the Giovanni to help with their “little problem” next time.

Next time? Ha! Next time Guy would be face to face with those psychos, pulling an Eric Draven routine. Though the gambit was probably folly, it did pay off in that it gave Guy the ammunition at last to make the final deal necessary for his Shadow’s cooperation. He swore that he would get full vengeance on the Grubbs to satisfy his dark side. In truth, Guy really wanted to experience life again – and love. He missed Ruth above everything else, and couldn't find anyone to replace her. Shocking his Shadow into cahoots was a good jolt of Castigation. It did rile up his dark side quite a bit, and he suffered the equivalent of a Harrowing right then and there. It served to fortify and mentally prepare Guy for the trials ahead. He fought through it, and against his Shadow, with aplomb.

Ghost Rider

When 2004 rolled around, Guy felt more than ready. He practically jumped into his corpse. He was ready to face the decay of his skeletal body. With urgent jolts of symbiotic intent, Guy inhabited his body, sheer emotion repopulating the flesh and enabling him to tear his way out of the packed earth.

It was a demanding time for the fledgling Risen. Guy reveled in the euphoria of “life”, even as it took awhile to get accustomed to the Skinlands, to the land of living. Everything was so much more solid. After a few weeks of stumbling about, he finally regained his bearings. He scored some minor off jobs, staying away from people as much as possible.

In time, he could afford to buy a new (well, used) motorcycle. He tinkered with it, upgrading its parts by skill. Guy began riding and wandering again. As he drove all over the Midwest, he sought out the Grubbs -– there was no trace of ‘em. Guy picked on other motorcycle gangs instead. Despite the vigor he demonstrated and joy he took in everyday activities, the coldness of death always hovered -– in his flesh, in the absence of his breath. Everywhere and everything seemed to be dying.

That only fueled his yearning to seek out love and romance more and more. To answer that true and heartfelt calling, Guy knew he would have better chances if he settled down somewhere, at least in a semi-permanent fashion. Hoping the Grubbs gang would have the balls to show back up some day, Guy decided to hang around the town in which he died. Maybe he’d get lucky…in both the arenas of hate and love.

The Shadow


The dark side of Guy Raynor rallies whenever he starts to brag or generally feel tougher, stronger, or smarter than the people with whom he’s interacting. While Guy does his best to mentally stave off the worst, he’s lucky in that his Shadow is simplistic. It thrives off fear, anger, and denigration. If he’s careful, he can avoid the pitfalls of those negative emotions. Of course, this is Guy we’re talking about. Careful? Ha! Who do you think you are, his mother?

Haunt


Guy's Haunt is his old studio apartment in the city, where he and Ruth happily lived until their brutal murders. It's filled with regrets and mementos of true love lost. A palpable sense of loss and anger presides there. It's certainly not a place Guy entertains girls very often.

Significant Other


Guy Raynor and Katherine “Katie” Vines have been going steady since 2005. He met the young woman at the Doghouse, a favorite bar of her college sorority. Guy didn’t expect to meet anyone special at a bar, but Serendipity has its funny ways of making things square out. The two hit it off in short time. She was never the typical sorority girl. Indeed, she used to be an outcast like Guy still was. Maybe that’s what attracted him to her. Guy hid his true nature from Katie as long as possible, but as his feelings for her deepened, he knew he had to tell her. And though understandably freaked out, her mutual love for Guy has kept them together. Now, can he keep their relationship going despite his Shadow’s demands to “break” her?

Nope. Fortunately for Katie, Guy didn’t literally break her. In fact, she yearned to be with him...forever. Such was her obsession and will that she orchestrated her own death and returned as the Walking Dead as well! Well then, together forever it is!

Katie

Weakness

Love & Fear


Guy’s passions conflict, and they are incredibly potent emotions at that. He will be torn one way or another inevitably. And, as the case goes with most Risen Dead, his Shadow’s winning that contest so far...

Likelihood of Corruption


High.

Guy is a tortured Risen Dead pretending to enjoy an unnatural life on the run.

Links

Character Stats

Character Profiles

Broken Citadel Game

E-mail me!



Main Character Hub

Back to Game Hub