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Played and depicted by Nigel Gale
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When not wearing his gas mask and gas cape (as he is in the picture above) Whippoorwill can be seen to be tall and muscular with pale-skin, blue eyes, and long green hair pulled back in a pony-tail (in a roughly 18th century shadow-Earth-style). He speaks with what, on shadow Earth, would be called a Deep South (of the USA) accent.
His personal symbol is an angry crescent moon.
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Whippoorwill is the natural son of Llewella, who originally left the baby with his father, Rackham, a wealthy wool merchant on his shadow, Idyl, which resembles a peaceful bronze-age agricultural community in a fertile valley in the middle of a vast forest. After one year, his father married a local woman Topaz, who adopted the boy and loved him as her own. He quickly acquired two brothers and a sister in addition to the dozens of cousins in his extended family. Up to the age of ten, he enjoyed a perfectly happy childhood, and seemed to be heading towards a contented existence as a farmer and probably headman of the village.
At this point, Llewella returned. She was aghast at the soft-headed weakling that his son had become. She was also very irritated by the hostile attitude of Rackham and the villagers (who have a strong antipathy towards mothers that abandon their children). Llewella abducted the boy by force, severely injuring and/or killing Rackham and several other adult family members in the process.
Whippoorwill was deeply emotionally wounded by the manner of his removal from Idyl and the family that he loved. To compound his distress, Llewella chose as his new home the shadow The Tunnel, which could hardly have been more different from Idyl: a dark, industrial nightmare full of mistrust and conflict. Even Whippoorwill's new family was full of vicious sibling rivalry. He left them, without sorrow, at the age of fourteen, to join the Army. Much of the next twenty years was spent at the borders of the Republic (or on the streets of rebellious cities), at war, during which, by the merit of his successes, he advanced in the Army, in the Knights' Caste and in society in general.
But the conflict inherent in the new shadow reflected the turmoil in his soul. His displacement and rage were vented on the battlefields.
Eventually, Whippoorwill found a measure of contentment among his comrades.
Whippoorwill's profound hatred for Llewella remains.
Whippoorwill is a leader of the Knights caste.
He is an active supporter of the 'Red' faction, which believes in not undermining the strength of the nobility any further, but channelling the Republic's energies into further territorial expansion along the Tunnel. The main rival faction, the 'Whites', are active in trying to expand the power of the knights at the expense of the nobles (but they are in alliance with many nobles and plebs, who see the knights as a stabilising influence in the face of the rapidly gaining artisans).
Whippoorwill's time is divided between:
His wife, Axensia, is a statuesquely handsome woman from a politically influential family. She and Whippoorwill have a measure of affection for one another, but it is understood that both have had a series of extra-marital affairs. She has had a son (Ulior, now six) by one of her lovers, and she is blindly devoted to his advancement.
His current mistress, Chi, is very pretty, young and naive. She is charming, but has no influence or other useful skills. She lives in a cottage at the edge of the grounds. Her presence and purpose are well-known to Axensia and all: Tunnel society is not squeamish about such things.
Two important members of his household are:
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Psyche : 10 (plus 2 advances) Strength : 20 Endurance : 30 Warfare : 15 (plus 1 advance) Zero Stuff : +5
Whippoorwill has twelve loyal minions, all of whom are quite tough as shadow-dwellers go; they are described in more detail below. [Chaos Psyche: 1, Chaos Strength: 1, Chaos Endurance: 1, Chaos Warfare: 1; Named and Numbered Quantity * 2 = 8 points total]
As a high-ranked member of the Army of the Republic in The Tunnel, Whippoorwill has his own personal War Machine. This is a large and rather strange war machine whose design is dictated by the rather unusual physical laws of The Tunnel (see below for a picture). The machine is steam powered, tracked, appears to be around forty tonnes in weight, heavily armoured and covered in bizarre weapons - pincers, circular saws, gas dispensers, water cannon, poison gas dispensers and so on - but has no guns. It looks like a cross between a tank, a crab, and something out of 'Robot Wars'. [Resistant to Firearms (Very Heavy Armour): 2, Mould Shadow Environment (Works Anywhere): 2, Double Damage (Large Crab Claws): 2, Mould Shadow Stuff (Self-Contained Environment): 1, Mould Shadow Stuff (Poison Gas Dispensers): 1, Mould Shadow Stuff (Burrow Through Rock at 5kph): 1 = 9 points total]
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He also has a suit of heavy armour which is gas-proof and which is worn under the gas cape. [Resistant to Firearms: 2]
He has brought The Tunnel as his personal shadow. [Shadow of the Realm: 2]
Whippoorwill has a number of loyal minions, for whom points have been paid. They are as follows:
All of Whippoorwill's minions are issued with normal equipment, including weapons, armour, gas-capes and gas masks, and so on. Even Thunder has his own gas mask and gas-cape.
Since he joined the game, Whippoorwill's mind has become somewhat stronger, and his reflexes have improved. He has learned a form of specialised anti-magic, which is stored in and delivered via smoke from a smoke grenade. He has has also improved his twelve original minions to that point that their speed and strength is at the lower level of Amberite ability, and recruited a vast number of additional minions, one hundred and forty of whom are as tough as his original minions, and another seventy-five million of whom whose speed is at the lower level of Amberite ability, but who are otherwise normal shadow folk. These troops come from a wide variety of different shadows, and are trained in all kinds of fighting. They carry various pieces of equipment which work in most shadows, including a thermic lance, a taser and some two thousand heavy machine guns.
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