*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

The kid

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Name:

The Kid
(His true name is never spoken. It is assumed lost, or burned out of record. He carries no papers and answers to whatever men call him.)

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Affiliation:

None (formerly survived among drifters, now hunted by doctrine)
He walks alone, though he is followed by consequence, shadowed by myth. He is watched by both zealot and angel, neither of which call him theirs.

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Age:

Approximately 16
His face is young, but not innocent. His eyes carry the color of ash after fire, and his hands are already calloused by cold, hunger, and the mistakes of men twice his age.

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Occupation:

Wanderer, beggar, thief, bearer of burdens not yet named
He rides with no banner, works with no coin, and kills only when the world demands it—and it often does.

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Backstory:

The Kid was born sometime after the fracture of the republic. No records remain. He was raised in the ruins of lost townships, among half-burned churches and the bones of old justice. His father, if he ever had one, vanished in the long retreat. His mother is said to have died with her hands on a knife and a sermon on her lips.

He’s survived by theft, trade, and silence. He has never known safety except when outnumbered. He has begged water from outlaws and shared bread with ghosts. In every camp, they ask the same thing: Where you from, boy? And he always says: Nowhere yet.

He is not a prophet. He is not a killer by nature. But he carries something that draws the eye of evil, and in the Book of Conviction, there is a blank page with his shape etched into it.

He will one day confront Hachizen.
He will one day resist.
And in that resistance,
Not Because he chose it.
For evil rewrites those who stand against it.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Ichiban Hachizen

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Name:

Ichiban Hachizen

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Affiliation:

None. All.
He belongs to no nation, no flag, no altar. And yet his words have crowned kings, burned churches, and fractured the continent into faith-states. He moves without followers, but his presence births armies.

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Age:

Unknown. Appears ageless.
Some say he was born during the collapse. Others claim he has no beginning, only arrivals. In truth, he is not measured in years—but in eras of silence followed by fire.

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Occupation:

Philosopher, preacher, warbringer, author of the Book of Conviction
He spreads a doctrine that denies all morality and replaces it with strength, hierarchy, and ritual conflict. His sermons are diseases of language, infecting those who hear them with certainty beyond questioning.

He does not conquer. He convinces.

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Backstory:

No one knows the place of his birth, and those who claim to are liars or prophets. What is known is this:

When the Great Depression struck and the republic failed, men looked for answers. But Hachizen gave them questions with no mercy.

He walked barefoot across the bones of abandoned towns and spoke of a world reborn without guilt.

They listened. They followed.
And when the fires stopped, they built altars from the skulls of the doubters.

But Hachizen does not stay. He moves on.
When he is killed, he returns.
When he is silenced, his words find new mouths.
He once said:

“A woman's genital is own by a man. And those who wield the ironclad have the right to wrist their arms.”

In the end, he is defeated by the Kid.
And that defeat.
Men walk the same road.

He is not a man.
He is the question that makes answers irrelevant.
He is doctrine given form.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Leland

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Name:

Leland
(Surname unknown.)

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Affiliation:

Unaligned.
He rides with outlaws, killers, and drifters when it suits him—but no gang claims him for long. He is the kind of man who shares a fire and robs you before it burns out.

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Age:

Mid-thirties.
His skin is wind-burned, and his teeth are stained from rotgut and silence. Time has worked on him like a stone in a dry riverbed—what's left is harder than what began.

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Occupation:

Thief, raider, deserter, murderer.
Leland does not take contracts. He takes opportunity. His life is a ledger soaked in red.

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Backstory:

Leland was not a man of small crimes. He made his name with iron and fire—two years past, he and a gang of five men derailed the Iron Western Line at dusk, placing charges under the trestle bridge just south of Laneford Gorge. The explosion shattered the timbers. A passenger train plunged into the ravine. Twenty men dead, their limbs scattered across the rock like the bones of some mythic beast.

He looted the wreck for coin and watches, cut the tongues from any who lived long enough to scream, and vanished into the badlands with a mule and a chest soaked in silver and blood.

The poster called him WANTED—DEAD. The brand on his neck—a scorched “V” carved by vigilantes—reads vermin. He wears it like a medal.

He has been shot, stabbed, beaten, and once hung, though the noose snapped. Some say the devil wouldn't take him. Others say he’s already been taken, and the man that walks now is just what was left behind.

He carries a bone-handled knife and a withered tobacco pouch sewn from the ear of a sheriff who once thought he’d seen the end of him.

His only known companion is a mare named Whiskey, half-starved and mean.

Leland speaks little, and when he does, it’s often just this:

“Ain’t no sins out here. Just debts still bein’ collected.”

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*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Ellis gratch

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Name: Ellis Gratch

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Affiliation:

Leader of a nomadic death-band known only as The Pale Ones—a gang not remembered by number, but by aftermath. Their only allegiance is to blood, coin, and the erasure of whatever stood before them. They move camp every third night, not out of caution, but belief—that staying too long roots the soul and softens the blade.

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Age:

Unknown. Mid to late 40s, though some say he’s never aged, only hardened. He wears no gray in his hair, but in his eyes there is the stillness of something already buried.

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Occupation:

Marauder, scalp-hunter, raider, preacher.
He leads without threat. Men follow because leaving means dying slower. His gang razes, flays, and vanishes. They've sacked border forts, torched cavalry patrols, and taken entire settlements without leaving a single grave to mark them.

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Backstory:

Little is known of Ellis Gratch's origin. He may have been a preacher's son. Or a federal scout turned outlaw. Or a madman born during the Fall of Washington who found clarity only in fire.

What is known:

♦ He once walked through a battlefield alone, collecting ears like tax.

♦ He shot a judge in broad daylight for quoting scripture during sentencing.

♦ He once made a man dig his own grave with his dead son’s rib, and then let him climb in without a word.

♦ No man who has drawn on him has survived. He is said to see the kill before it begins, and act not out of rage but confirmation.

♦ He carries a hatchet made from a cavalry colonel’s jawbone and a pair of revolvers with no notches. He says notches are for men who doubt their memory.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Fitch Duell

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Name:

Fitch Duell
(Commonly called “Sun-Eye”)

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Affiliation:

None.
He walks alone, though sightings of him are recorded in campfire tales and outlaw ledgers, usually before storms or massacres. He is not followed, but remembered. He is considered by some as an omen, by others as a curse.

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Age:

Estimated to be in his forties. His body bears the wear of hunger, exposure, and wandering—not by accident, but as if carved by purpose without destination. His blind right eye glistens with a glassy sheen, permanently turned toward the sun.

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Occupation:

Wanderer, self-proclaimed seer, outcast from every township he’s entered
He is not employed, nor useful, nor welcome in most places. But he survives by trading visions for bread, prayers for coin, and madness for mercy—though he receives little of any.

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Backstory:

Fitch Duell was once the son of a lay preacher. Born under a cloudless sky and said to have screamed for three days before nursing. He lost his right eye not in battle or sickness, but from staring into the sun for three days atop a ridge, saying he was waiting for “a sign that ain’t been told yet.” His father beat him near to death when he came down. The eye never healed. It turned white and stared skyward even when his head bowed.

The town declared him afflicted by demons, or cursed by the Lord for the sins of his blood. It was said that his grandfather had burned freedmen in a barn and buried the ashes in a church well. And so the sin passed down. Fitch was its vessel.

By the age of fifteen, he was cast out.
He’s been seen walking roads barefoot, laughing at trees, weeping at dry wells. But always surviving. Always knowing when to vanish before death arrives.

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*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Cyrus thatch

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Name:

Cyrus Thatch
(“The Man with the Dog”)

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Affiliation:

None—eternally itinerant.
He belongs to no banner, creed, or camp. But his name appears in the margins of many old ledgers and bounty rosters, usually scratched out in charcoal or rust. He has shared fires with zealots, with lawmen, with convicts. He has remained unchanged.

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Age:

Unknown, but aged by life and wilderness both. His beard is grey, but his eyes carry the stillness of something that’s already been judged and found wanting.

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Occupation:

Drifter, grave-watcher, flesh-hunter by necessity.
He trades stories for meat, names for silence, and carries a reputation for surviving where no man should. He neither hires nor is hired, but appears when needed, like a consequence wearing boots.

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Backstory:

Very little is known about where Cyrus Thatch came from. Some say he was a chaplain who deserted his post after the burning of a children’s mission. Others claim he was once a member of a militia unit that disappeared into the canyons during a skirmish—and that he was the only one to return, barefoot, with a dog and a knife.

His constant companion is a black wolfhound, near blind and scarred, yet sharp of fang. Thatch speaks only to the dog, and when he does, it is with the tone of a man confessing to his own shadow.

He carries a knife of obsidian and a pouch of old bones—some animal, some not—wrapped in cloth etched with symbols no living tongue has translated. His coat is patched with hide, and he wears around his neck a small charm carved into a jawbone of a stillborn calf.

He seems to hold to no known religion. Yet he’s been seen kneeling beside burned chapels, weeping without sound, as if mourning not for what was lost—but for what might return.

Outlaws respect him, but they do not touch him.
Children fear him, and animals do not bark in his presence.
Men who’ve tried to rob him have woken days later with no memory, a name carved into their chest, and the same dog licking their wounds.

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*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Juniper hook

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Name:

Juniper Hook
(“Old Junip”)

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Affiliation:

Former Confederate Infantry
Now rides alone, though he is welcomed in certain outlaw camps for his stories, and feared in others for what he believes. He wears no colors now, but his heart still bleeds grey, and he keeps a sliver of the Stars and Bars sewn inside his coat.

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Age:

Mid-sixties, though his back has not yet bent. His gait is slow, but never hesitant. He bears the look of a man waiting to be ambushed and not caring when it comes.

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Occupation:

Drifter, grave-tender, ex-soldier, occasional gun-hand
He carries a rusted Enfield rifle slung on his back, not fired in years. Claims he keeps it only to remind time it forgot something.

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Backstory:

Juniper Hook fought for the Confederate States of America. He was born in—Atlanta, Franklin, Bentonville. He survived. Most of his company didn’t. He claims that had the South won, America would still be whole. Not just whole—but holy. He says the war wasn’t just lost—it was misjudged, and that the victors made a nation not of law, but of carrion principles that rotted the core.

“The Union won. And they let the rot in.”

After the war, Hook wandered. He tried farming, preaching, rail work. But the world had no use for a rebel who never repented, and so he drifted. He began to dig graves. Sometimes for pay. Sometimes not. Sometimes before the man had died.

He believes that the Great Fracture, the fall of America into state-fiefdoms, bandit baronies, and outlaw rule, was birthed the moment the South fell.

He wears a ragged gray kepi, and he has a bullet lodged in his right hip—one he refused to remove, claiming it anchors him to a better history.

Believes that the fracture of America was ordained by moral weakness baked into the postwar order

Holds to an old Southern code, though he no longer names it aloud

Carries a dog-eared ledger of names—fallen soldiers, perhaps. Or enemies.

Speaks often of “the second war that never came.” And says when it does, he’ll be ready.

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*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Chief León del Valle

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Name:

Chief León del Valle
(Called “El Coronel de los Fantasmas” — The Colonel of Ghosts)

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Affiliation:

Commander of the Northern Broken Regiments — a fractured coalition of ex-militia fighters, surviving ranch clans, and desert nomads, formed in the aftermath of Mexico’s northern collapse. He governs not by title, but by memory, and the fear that he never forgets a name.

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Age:

Late fifties. His eyes hold the weary precision of an educated man who has been forced to speak violence more often than law. His beard is trimmed but white; his movements slow but never clumsy. He wears exhaustion like armor.

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Occupation:

Warchief, former cavalry officer, avenger of vanished towns
He holds no official rank now, but his word still opens gates, and men rise when he enters a tent. His presence carries weight like an old bell tolling through smoke.

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Backstory:

León del Valle was born to land and lineage. Raised in a hacienda near Monterrey, educated in Mexico City, he was once a scholar of letters before the frontiers called him home. He joined the cavalry during the height of unrest, fighting raiders, insurgents, and foreign hands with equal bitterness.

He rose to command, not through birthright, but through fury—fury at what the war had done to his country, and what his country had willingly done to itself.

When peace failed, and Mexico’s northern territories began to break apart—under pressure from famine, foreign rifles, and failing governments—León gathered the remnants. Families with no flag. Soldiers with no pay. Elders who remembered a nation that never kept its promise.

He led them north, not to conquer, but to endure.

He still wears his officer’s coat, though it’s torn, patched, and sun-bleached. The silver buttons bear the faces of the men who died under his command, melted down and pressed by his own hand.

He drinks only from a silver flask, engraved with the seal of a republic that no longer exists.

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*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Chief Matamoros del Río

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Name:

Chief Matamoros del Río
(Known among the badlands as “El Último Viejo” – The Last Elder)

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Affiliation:

Leader of the Survivor Tribes of the Lower Basin, a scattered population of ranchers, former soldiers, widows, and field hands who refused to flee south after the northern wars fractured the borderlands. His word is not enforced—it is obeyed out of reverence.

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Age:

Early 70s, but stands like a younger man still weighted by duty. His skin is sun-darkened and creased like old leather. He wears a wide, battered sombrero and carries a gnarled walking stick carved from mesquite and wrapped in mulehide.

His eyes are faded amber, and no man has yet looked into them and spoken false.

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Occupation:

Community leader, war-seasoned elder.

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Backstory:

Matamoros del Río fought in three wars and buried the flags from all of them. Once a decorated officer under the Mexican Federal Army, he lost an entire family during the Second Collapse—his wife, his two sons, and his daughter—all killed in a borderland raid fueled by desperation and vengeance.

He did not take revenge. Not immediately.

He wandered for two years in the desert with no shoes, living off carrion and stolen corn, seeking not enemies—but clarity. When he returned, he rebuilt his village from the graveyard outward. The chapel became his home. The bones became the walls.

He now leads not a militia, but a people—a loose confederation of wounded families and scarred old soldiers. He teaches the children to walk wide around fire, and the men to bury the dead as if God were watching.

He is feared not for what he does—but for what he does not allow.

Wears a rosary made from river stones, not beads.

Smokes only once per year—on the day his family died.

Walks with a limp, from a wound he never speaks of.

Known to weep without shame, then lift a machete with the same hands.

Never eats before his people. Never rests while a stranger is hungry.

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*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
The Cuban

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Name:

The Cuban
(“Red Man”)

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Affiliation:

None consistent.
He’s ridden with border cartels, warbands, zealot convoys, and once served under a known inquisitor-judge in New Galvez. None kept him long. He is unkept by design, a man with no root and no flag.

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Age:

Unknown. Appears mid-30s, though his body bears the smoke-etched lines of older men. His hair is black and coarse, his face thin but sharp, like something carved quick with a dirty blade. His voice is melodic.

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Occupation:

Interpreter, fire-handler, relic-smuggler, duelist
He claims to speak five languages, though none cleanly. He speaks in half-phrases, mythologies, and proverbs stolen from dead men. He carries no gun, only a red sash soaked in lamp oil, which he wears across his chest and has been seen lighting during battle.

Some say he once burned a man alive just to make the man’s shadow dance on the canyon walls. Others say he speaks to the flame like it were kin.

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Backstory:

Nothing official remains.
Rumor holds he was born in a penal colony on the coast of Hispaniola, fathered by a merchant, mothered by a witch said to boil language from bones. He grew among men who burned heretics for heresy they invented on the spot.

He was sent across the Gulf as a boy, sold into servitude, escaped during a riot. He has walked ever since. Some say he seeks his mother’s bones. Others believe he has no past at all—only the smoke of lies and the perfume of embers.

He has lit towns aflame with oil and tongue alone, whispering revolt in the right ears, letting fire do the rest. Men trust him once. Rarely twice.

He walks barefoot through ash, claiming fire is the purest judgment—that it never lies, and it never leaves corpses pretty.