"Genius is sometimes mistaken for madness. But no one mistakes stupidity. Do that again and I'll ram a dunce cap up your ass so deep not even your Pardoner will find it."

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History

Life

Orphanage life seemed to be designed to teach Carl that life was hard, everyone looked out for themselves, and a man had to be tough and shrewd to survive, never mind succeed. At the turn of the 20th century in Kansas City, that was where Carl found himself. A discarded child, parents dead or just gone (he never found out which), orphan life among other orphans proved very challenging. His peers always conflicted with each other over petty privileges. While Carl had a few friends, even they fought regularly. And the master and mistress of the orphanage, along with their ex-military help, took strictness beyond the boundary to cruelty. After all, if their parents did not want the children, they weren't wanted at all. They were burdens to society unless they could shape themselves up and become productive members.

Trickery and deceit were the tools in the orphanage. It also helped to be able to take a beating and return it full-circle. Carl was reshaped into a hard-ass like his drill sergeant-like overseers. He felt like a slave under their vigilance and punishment. He was whipped weekly for inconsequential misbehaviors. So were the other orphans. Naturally, the youths began to search for ways to turn the blame on each other to avoid pain. Carl was whipped many times for other persons' misdeeds. And he learned to give it right back, and make sure those who passed the blame to him were later beaten for his own misdeeds.

And Carl's rule-breaking only grew. It's as if the orphanage intended to breed criminals out of the lot. When he was fourteen, he finally escaped the hellish orphanage. The skills he learned in that place helped him survive on the streets. Streetwise cunning and vicious brawling tricks kept the young Carl on top of his tier. So it was not shocking that a modern "thieves' guild" invited Carl into their midst. Their headquarters, a ramshackle warehouse by the river, became his new home. This group of cutthroats were responsible largely for petty thievery -- pickpocketing, robbery, car-theft, and occasional horse or cattle-rustling.

Carl became a talented addition to the group, which came to be known to the locals as the "Wharf Rats". The police force's attempt to crack down on them met with limited success, particularly due to the police's distracted problems with the arrival and syndication of La Cosa Nostra. While a Wharf Rat, Carl honed his criminal skills and earned himself a reputation of sorts among his fellow thieves and cutthroats. Rumor circulated that he once cut a fellow thief from throat to crotch for stealing his share of a loot. Carl never confirmed the rumors, but no one messed with him once he brandished that knife. Not even if they had a gun -- because he could throw that blade, too, and proved he could throw it accurately before they could draw and cock their firearm.

Thus, Carl became a leading member of the group for its near decade of "prosperity". He brooked no argument from his lessers, and regularly kicked the crap out of those who disobeyed his orders and failed to meet his expectations. The Wharf Rats were always hard. He made them harder, tougher. But he succeeded too well. Carl knew better than to kill cops and he always advised (i.e., commanded) against it. But some hotheads had to go and off a couple of beat cops. The whole department's patience was gone, and they turned their considerable might on the gang. The Wharf Rats were finished. Carl, as well as many others, were arrested and sent to prison. However, Carl didn't stay there long. He manipulated his fellow convicts to riot during a labor day. While the guards suppressed the rioters, he picked his own shackles and escaped from the guards' notice. He was a free man once more.

Although on the lam, he stayed in the city, evading the marshals and police through his street savvy. On his own, and occasionally with partners, Carl became even more of a vicious criminal. He was responsible for perpetrating all sorts of felonies. His wanted list included extortion, assault, robbery, destruction of property calculated in the thousands, murder, and even rape. Carl worked with other criminals on occasion, but slyly sold them out. After all, he had little doubt that they would sell him out first. So as it got harder for him to find partners that trusted him, Carl began to work for the Mafia on off-jobs. Anytime the mob wanted a fall guy outside the family for some illegitimate work, Carl was one of the operatives upon whom they relied. And he was a very good agent: stealing and killing were his operative words.

Death

Naturally, Carl had no real friends of any sort. His women were all paid prostitutes. He grew more and more sullen, withdrawn, bitter, and vicious. So capricious and callous did he become that he wrote his own finale. He was captured in the middle of a jewelry heist, arrested by the police and sent to jail to await trial. And it was a short and certain trial indeed. Carl was sentenced to death for his crimes. He was sent to death row. There he waited for a year, while previous inmates suffered the electric chair. He knew that would be his fate soon enough. Talks with the priest that tried to give him spiritual repose made him aware of life's uncertainties and unfairness. Carl stopped blaming the world for making him into the villain he became. And he began to blame himself. But it was too late to avoid his untimely end. He could only hope for a fair shake in the afterlife. But even that seemed uncertain. Carl remembers the trepidation of marching down the corridor to that deadly chamber. He remembers keeping his dignity and quiet veneer even as they strapped him into the chair. He remembers that intense, limb and muscle-snapping agony as the electricity blasted through his body, drowning his scream in industrial power. At age thirty-two, Carl was executed. But he wasn't gone.

Engulfed in his Caul in the cemetery where his cheap pine coffin was buried, Carl remembered his last meal. The steak was as he ordered, medium rare, but the roasted potatoes were a tad overdone. Heh, what a world. Carl was dead. But he still existed, the Underworld his vast tomb. He stirred but could barely move. The ectoplasmic Caul held him prisoner. Panic took over the Enfant, and electricity bolted through him and jolted through the Caul. It was as if even in death he carried over some of the energy that killed him. He struggled aimlessly, taunted by the voice in his head -- his Shadow -- as if the "Id" side of his personality came starkly to life.

Finally though, the Caul was sliced open. A pair of raking claws then offered a strong hand. Carl was pulled, gasping, from his sundered Caul. There stood the biggest ghost Carl ever saw, who introduced himself in a sepulchral voice as the Mask. A fitting moniker that was, considering the iron mask the spirit wore. And from the Mask, Carl learned that he was dead, but stuck in this afterlife-like purgatory. He would have to come to grips with his Shadow and history, but first he had to grow accustomed to the Shadowlands and beyond if he were to survive Oblivion long enough to Transcend. The Mask voiced confidence in Carl, however. Carl nearly effected self-release from his own Caul -- a rare thing capable of only the strongest wraiths. The electric currents that raced through Carl constantly might have weakened the plasm perhaps, but Carl believed he was capable of tearing through the plasm as his mentor suggested.

Early Years

And Carl bent his will to the teachings of the Mask. He learned that nothing was inflexible, not even the soul, and that people could change: for the better. He was inducted into the Masquers Guild, learning a philosophy of freedom through obligation under the Mask. Carl came to believe that if he served the community of the Restless Dead as protector and shepherd, like the Mask, he might find release from purgatory. So under the Mask's stoic guidance, Carl reshaped his existence and life philosophy to a worthier cause than what he pursued in life. Of course, Carl's inner evil was as relentless as it was sentient. It constantly strove to corrupt Carl into vile behaviors as he was in life. So the Enfant began to regularly see a Pardoner, a cleric-like ghost with the power to quell and weaken the spiteful voice of one's Shadow.

Of course, Carl paid in Pathos for the privilege of a Pardoner. But fortunately, the Guilds in the Kansas City area necropolis were loosely allied and united against the common rival, Stygia. Renegades ran amok in the Shadowlands, too, keeping the Legionnaires busy and their eyes off the Guilders. But over the years, Carl and his fellow Masquers engaged many other wraiths and factions. They fought Stygia, they fought Renegades, they fought Spectres. And the battles often coincided with violence in the human world. Carl was fighting almost non-stop during the World War II and Vietnam eras. He suffered vicious Harrowings, too, but he always bounced back and took revenge on his enemies. He weathered Maelstroms, including the Great Maelstrom that marked the detonation of atom bombs on Japan. But unlike many wraiths, Carl stood upright against the tides of Spectres that rode those abrasive storms. And for many years, Carl served the Masquers and therefore the wraithly populace of the necropolis fearlessly well.

By the 80s, however, the wars took their toll on the ruling Hierarchs. They continuously raised their taxes on freewraith and Guilder alike. Finally, the populace rose up in revolt. Renegades, freewraiths, and Guilders all banded together against the Stygians. The Hierarchy was driven out of the necropolis entirely. And at the forefront of that battle was the Mask and his greatest warriors, of whom Carl was counted. For his glorious action, no one disputed the Mask's claim to the Citadel -- a great mansion Haunt in the necropolis near a cemetery -- and Carl got to dwell there, too. The consolidation of wraithly enterprises was short-lived, however. The Renegades fell back to their wild gangs, freewraiths rejoined their own circles and minded their own business, and Guilders went about their quiet schemes and dreams.

But in the early 90s, that fragile alliance was forced to rekindle. A terrible force arose in the Shadowlands of that necropolitan area. A Malfean stirred through the Tempest, sending waves of Spectres to invade the area. While other brave wraiths went to arrange the defeat of the Unborn, the Mask, Carl, and many other Masquers went forth to face the hordes of demonic Spectres. But there were so many, a head-on fight was surely suicidal. The Mask and Carl put their heads together and came up with an excellent plan. They lured the devils into an enclosed cemetery with small bands and forces, devised to look weak and vulnerable. The Spectres took the bait, chasing the spirits down. And then the trap was sprung. Pardoners Bulwarked the area off, sealing the Spectres in that place. Meanwhile, Carl oversaw the launching of barrow-flame projectiles, bombarding the hordes with fiery doom.

Then, taking up relic spear and sword and Moliated claw, club, and armor, the Mask led all the Masquers, the fiercer Renegade gangs, and any other strong ghosts. Carl was at the spearhead of this focused counter-drive that emulated the phalanx assault methods the Stygian troops often used. The weakened hordes of chaotic Spectres were driven back, their lines broken, and many wicked souls sent screaming to Oblivion. Victory was claimed in the streets and Haunts of the necropolis even as the Malfean was defeated by more esoteric methods.

Recent Years

Ever after that day, the Masquers became recognized as the unofficial law in the necropolis of Kansas City and all outlying areas. The Mask's initiative to defeat the Malfean's forces, along with his aides' bold and fearless endeavors (such as Carl's), earned the Guild a place of special respect in the Shadowlands. They enforced loose rules of common sense and protected the Restless populace from unwanted influences (including Spectres and Stygia). The Mask deputized his closest aides, like Carl.

Thereafter, Carl felt especially responsible for the pragmatic laws of the region. These simple laws, he decided, were all one needed to keep enough order for wraiths to explore their own natures and come to terms with this purgatory. Once more, Carl felt the pull of obligation to defend this dead society and command its obedience for its own safety. Through service to others, he would be free. By punishing the guilty as he was once punished, he may repent and finally Transcend death. Faith wasn't enough to get into Heaven, as far as he was concerned. It took action. Purgatory was where he was stuck until he completed his tasks to repent for his sins. And he knew he had much that he had to pay.

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The Shadow

Thwarted by Carl's repeated and annual visits to a Pardoner, his Shadow grows impatient and spiteful. To get back at its Psyche, it is more often trying to draw Spectres to the Masquer. They could overwhelm him and drag him down into Oblivion. Then Carl can be reborn as the monster he always was. Carl's attempts to rehabilitate himself and redeem himself as a good soul disgusts his Shadow.

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Artifacts & Relics

Hunter's Knife
Type: Relic
Level: 3
Origin: This relic knife was given to him by the Guild to better perform his duties as Deputy. It was collected from another wraith (rather than a wraith Moliated into the form of a knife).
Description: This blade is kept in a brown leather-seeming scabbard. The bone-handled blade is single-edged but razor sharp and finely tipped. The knife isn't serrated, and its plasm is as gray as the wraith that handles it.
Effects: Stab and slash stuff.
Pathos: Relic: 0; #1: 0
Activation: Unsheath. Simple as the real thing.

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Significant Other

Carl took Annie Johnson under wing in 2004. Practically an Enfant, Annie needed a guide badly. Wraithly passions soon inflamed a friendly relationship into a passionate one. To date, Carl has not informed Annie of some of the crimes of which he is guilty in life. It would probably alienate the young ghost who is dead because of a rapacious monster’s lusts. For now, Carl simply courts Annie’s affections and attempts to convince her to join the Masquers Guild, the only philosophy to which he really adheres.

Carl felt he eventually had to tell Annie of the past though. In 2009, he privately informed her of his sordid past. He discovered Annie’s outrage wasn’t at his past so much as his refusal to share such an important detail for so long. She left for a time, until she accepted who he was and more importantly who he is, and she returned to the necropolis...and his side.

Annie

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Weakness
Judge, Jury, & Executioner

To Carl's mind, there is no time or excuse for wrong-doing. What it does to the self and how it impacts the world around is unacceptable. So such villains are to be immediately punished. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize or care that such strict cruelty is just as bad. The tighter the bonds one applies, the fiercer the prisoners will chafe and resist.

Likelihood of Corruption

High.

While Carl is not a particularly diabolic individual, his penchant for punitive cruelty may get him in serious spiritual trouble.

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Centropolis by Night

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