Post by dwindsweptwayne on Jan 31, 2013 20:37:03 GMT -5
OOC Name: Firestorm
OOC Gender: F
IC Name: Castle Cane (PO1C-E6)
Character Model: Matteus Verdelho
Ghost Tag: The Postman
Age: 36 (7/8/78)
Gender: M
Hair: White - but his beard is dark brown.
Eyes: Hazel
Height: 73.5 inches
Weight: 228
Weapons: Large-game hunting rifle, double-barrel shotgun
Animals: Porcupine - a mostly-broken (at least to carrying stuff, though still a little prickly for riding) formerly-wild Pinto mare. Also, Costco - a mixed breed (miniature dachshund-Highland Terrier-toy Poodle), black, with a sheen of gray over it, so he looks like he's either been rolling in a dumpster, or he's a really nasty stormcloud about to break and dump a shitload of EEEWWW right on someone's head. He's pretty even-tempered, but very territorial, with a yapping, annoying bark.
Special Survival Skills: Basic military training [Navy]; seamanship; conspiracy theory; minimalism; animal husbandry; horseback riding; general salvage
Quirks: Perpetually restless, he can't be tied down. Too long in one place and his feet start itching. He is tattooed while in the Navy, and is also pierced (though the piercings were done by a piercer AFTER the Rising, not while he was in the Navy, at one of the enclaves he's stopped at to collect "mail". He accepted the piercings as a gift for carrying a certain package for the piercer to his wife and two sons, who turned out to be alive near Kansas City).
Biography:
Castle grew up in Sylmar, a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Los Angeles. Dad was enlisted military, mom was a military wife, and Castle grew up with decent discipline and a sense of country and service.
in 1990, when Castle was 12, dad shipped out for the Persian Gulf War. He didn't come home. In a freak accident, a piece of plywood that had been laid down as a ditch cover was picked up by the wind during a sandstorm. It flew across the camp, catching SSGT Kane just below his helmet, decapitating him at the 4th vertebrae.
SSGT Kane's brother, Lourdon, took Castle and his mom in. Castle's uncle was a decent guy, though probably not completely right in the head. A former Navy Seal, he was eccentric, and a serious conspiracy theorist. He swore that he'd been subjected to illicit government research on germ warfare while a Seal. Everyone pretty much poo-pooh'd him, but Castle thought Uncle Lourdon was interesting enough that he listened and learned. Lourdon was an avid survivalist, though he lived in town for Castle's sake, so the boy could finish school.
When Castle graduated, being something less than stellar at academics, he decided he'd follow in his dads and uncle's footsteps, and enlisted in the Navy in 1996. He opted for the navy over the army thinking that he'd see more of the world. He shipped out as a Postal Clerk. The work wasn't bad, and he ended up staying in.
During his first shore tour (36 mos) he was stationed at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, and he met a woman, Carolyn. They dated for almost a year before he proposed. A year after they were married. Carolyn gave birth to a daughter (Moriah) at home, with a highly-recommended midwife, imported from Texas [this would be Darlene], though Castle was at sea and missed the birth. He did get to attend a couple of prenatal visits while on leave, though, and met Darlene and approved of her -- and was just as happy not to have to deal with the hospital paperwork and all of that. He took a shore rotation when the baby was 4 months old. When he'd been married a little less than 2 years, and his daughter was just turning 1, he started his next 48-month Sea Tour.
It was while he was on Sea Tour that his wife informed him that she was "emotionally unable to handle the long sea rotations" and that she had filed for a no-contest divorce. He continued to pay child support for his daughter, but to deal with the pain, he opted for additional sea rotations rather than having to come home to face an empty house. He later learned that his wife had re-married... his unit's Lt. Comm. at Mugu.
At the end of his 2nd consecutive Sea Tour, his request for a 3rd consecutive (4th total) Sea Rotation was denied and he was ordered to report for Shore Tour. He was assigned to Almeda Naval Complex, near San Jose California.
Kane was on R&R when he went up to visit his uncle, who was still living in the same house Castle had grown up in. Uncle Lourdon told Castle that the "government spooks" were up to no good again, and he had proof. The "proof" was a bunch of classified documents that had, apparently, been accidentally discarded in a regular trash-can, and that had been disseminated among the conspiracy community, digging for dirt. There were vague references to some medical ops, some of which did sound a little hinkey, but Castle had heard so many of Uncle Lourdon's' flakey theories over the years that he really didn't take this one too seriously.
It was another year before anything came of that discussion with Uncle Lourdon. Castle's mom passed away early that same year from a stroke, and Uncle Lourdon moved out of the family house and back to his hidden bunker, up near the Oregon/California border. Castle bought himself a small ranch out in the boonies near Sonora, working 4 days on the NAS, and spending his long weekends learning to ride horses, and going out for the annual wild-horse roundups every year, and then 'fostering' a few of the horses. You weren't supposed to ride them or anything, but once he got them on the ranch, nobody paid attention, and a couple of them were less wild than others -- it wasn't like he 'broke' them or anything… they just… sorta liked him, and he liked them. He had a couple of hands who ran the place while he was on base, and it seemed like it was working out just fine.
It was a trip into Sonora proper while on extended leave right before the holidays -- a last run for feed and winter supplies before the heavy January snows set in -- when all heck broke loose and Castle realized that his uncle might have been more right than Castle was ready to admit. Before he could get out of town, he had to shoot a half dozen shambling walking dead.
Several weeks later, the bombers flew overhead, and a while after that, mushroom clouds sprang up like, well, mushrooms from San Francisco down south of Los Angeles -- though Castle had no way of knowing just how far south they'd gone. Several hours later, a series of massive earthquakes tore through, even rocking the mountains up where Castle was living. He decided to head up to his Uncle's. He packed up his two painted pintos and enough food and water to cover him for a while if the weather turned on him, and headed north.
Uncle Lourdon had a place for him, of course, and they talked a good piece about how to get through the crisis. However, two months after arriving at Lourdon's bunker, Uncle Lourdon died of a heart attack.
For a good long while, Castle lived out of the bunker, but he was the restless sort, and staying cooped up in one place for months on end just wasn't his thing. He rode out the winter, and into the spring, but by summer, he just couldn't take it any more. He packed up his horses and headed out to find people -- he wasn't sure where he was gonna find them, but he was sure as heck certain he couldn't be the only person left alive in the world.
As he traveled he remembered this movie… The Postman with Kevin Costner. He'd seen it when he was younger, and it made quite an impression on him. He noticed that, for the few people he did meet, they were all isolated, and thought how it might be cool if HE could do something like what Kevin Costner did -- I mean, after all, it was what he was trained for, right?
His first journey was south, towards Point Mugu, to see if there was any hope his daughter was still alive. Yeah, he'd take the ex-wife too, if he had to, but more than anything, he wanted to get his daughter out. He couldn't get close enough to actually see the house -- wasn't anything left to see, and he wondered whether they'd evacuated the healthy folk, whether the Lt. Commander had had enough notice of what was coming that he'd been able to save the wife and daughter -- or even whether the ex was still married to the asshole. Wasn't anything left to see, though, south of Redding.
That was where he found Costco. He got his name because Castle picked him up in a Costco parking lot in Redding. His Geiger counter had been going ape-shit, and he knew it was too hot to go any further... but then he'd heard the yipp yipp yipp, and the little pest had come waddling out, yapping at his ankles, and what the HECK was he supposed t' do. Leave it there to slowly rot away?
The neighborhood beyond the Costco was a nuclear wasteland, where volcanoes actually rose out of the remains of the San Andreas fault. Turned out California HADN'T fallen into the ocean with the next Big One (caused by multiple nuclear warheads falling in and around the fault). Instead, a new Ring of Fire had taken shape along the fault-line, making the area uninhabitable -- a state it would remain in, likely for centuries.
After this, Castle just sort of wandered around -- Heading in a big old half circle out from the ranch, sweeping north, then south, till he found people. He did find them. But he could never bring himself to stay -- instead, he agreed to carry word up and down with him, carrying notes for folk who may have had family here, or there, that they wanted to see were still alive. Slowly, he ranged out pretty far -- where it was weeks, then months of traveling to get back to the ranch or the bunker -- so he gave them to nearby families to live on -- better than the soft-tent camps they were trying to make do with, and after all, he wasn't gonna use them.... and he ranged out, deciding he'd make himself a big old circuit and see what might be left of the United States -- letting the people he met decide his next destination. At one of the small extended-family enclaves he stopped at on his travels, the family members were searching for one of their own, who had gone East with his boss. In trade for supplies, Castle agreed that he'd carry their missive east, and see if he could find this guy, Dusty, and pass on word that he had family still alive out around Klamath Lake.
OOC Gender: F
IC Name: Castle Cane (PO1C-E6)
Character Model: Matteus Verdelho
Ghost Tag: The Postman
Age: 36 (7/8/78)
Gender: M
Hair: White - but his beard is dark brown.
Eyes: Hazel
Height: 73.5 inches
Weight: 228
Weapons: Large-game hunting rifle, double-barrel shotgun
Animals: Porcupine - a mostly-broken (at least to carrying stuff, though still a little prickly for riding) formerly-wild Pinto mare. Also, Costco - a mixed breed (miniature dachshund-Highland Terrier-toy Poodle), black, with a sheen of gray over it, so he looks like he's either been rolling in a dumpster, or he's a really nasty stormcloud about to break and dump a shitload of EEEWWW right on someone's head. He's pretty even-tempered, but very territorial, with a yapping, annoying bark.
Special Survival Skills: Basic military training [Navy]; seamanship; conspiracy theory; minimalism; animal husbandry; horseback riding; general salvage
Quirks: Perpetually restless, he can't be tied down. Too long in one place and his feet start itching. He is tattooed while in the Navy, and is also pierced (though the piercings were done by a piercer AFTER the Rising, not while he was in the Navy, at one of the enclaves he's stopped at to collect "mail". He accepted the piercings as a gift for carrying a certain package for the piercer to his wife and two sons, who turned out to be alive near Kansas City).
Biography:
Castle grew up in Sylmar, a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Los Angeles. Dad was enlisted military, mom was a military wife, and Castle grew up with decent discipline and a sense of country and service.
in 1990, when Castle was 12, dad shipped out for the Persian Gulf War. He didn't come home. In a freak accident, a piece of plywood that had been laid down as a ditch cover was picked up by the wind during a sandstorm. It flew across the camp, catching SSGT Kane just below his helmet, decapitating him at the 4th vertebrae.
SSGT Kane's brother, Lourdon, took Castle and his mom in. Castle's uncle was a decent guy, though probably not completely right in the head. A former Navy Seal, he was eccentric, and a serious conspiracy theorist. He swore that he'd been subjected to illicit government research on germ warfare while a Seal. Everyone pretty much poo-pooh'd him, but Castle thought Uncle Lourdon was interesting enough that he listened and learned. Lourdon was an avid survivalist, though he lived in town for Castle's sake, so the boy could finish school.
When Castle graduated, being something less than stellar at academics, he decided he'd follow in his dads and uncle's footsteps, and enlisted in the Navy in 1996. He opted for the navy over the army thinking that he'd see more of the world. He shipped out as a Postal Clerk. The work wasn't bad, and he ended up staying in.
During his first shore tour (36 mos) he was stationed at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, and he met a woman, Carolyn. They dated for almost a year before he proposed. A year after they were married. Carolyn gave birth to a daughter (Moriah) at home, with a highly-recommended midwife, imported from Texas [this would be Darlene], though Castle was at sea and missed the birth. He did get to attend a couple of prenatal visits while on leave, though, and met Darlene and approved of her -- and was just as happy not to have to deal with the hospital paperwork and all of that. He took a shore rotation when the baby was 4 months old. When he'd been married a little less than 2 years, and his daughter was just turning 1, he started his next 48-month Sea Tour.
It was while he was on Sea Tour that his wife informed him that she was "emotionally unable to handle the long sea rotations" and that she had filed for a no-contest divorce. He continued to pay child support for his daughter, but to deal with the pain, he opted for additional sea rotations rather than having to come home to face an empty house. He later learned that his wife had re-married... his unit's Lt. Comm. at Mugu.
At the end of his 2nd consecutive Sea Tour, his request for a 3rd consecutive (4th total) Sea Rotation was denied and he was ordered to report for Shore Tour. He was assigned to Almeda Naval Complex, near San Jose California.
Kane was on R&R when he went up to visit his uncle, who was still living in the same house Castle had grown up in. Uncle Lourdon told Castle that the "government spooks" were up to no good again, and he had proof. The "proof" was a bunch of classified documents that had, apparently, been accidentally discarded in a regular trash-can, and that had been disseminated among the conspiracy community, digging for dirt. There were vague references to some medical ops, some of which did sound a little hinkey, but Castle had heard so many of Uncle Lourdon's' flakey theories over the years that he really didn't take this one too seriously.
It was another year before anything came of that discussion with Uncle Lourdon. Castle's mom passed away early that same year from a stroke, and Uncle Lourdon moved out of the family house and back to his hidden bunker, up near the Oregon/California border. Castle bought himself a small ranch out in the boonies near Sonora, working 4 days on the NAS, and spending his long weekends learning to ride horses, and going out for the annual wild-horse roundups every year, and then 'fostering' a few of the horses. You weren't supposed to ride them or anything, but once he got them on the ranch, nobody paid attention, and a couple of them were less wild than others -- it wasn't like he 'broke' them or anything… they just… sorta liked him, and he liked them. He had a couple of hands who ran the place while he was on base, and it seemed like it was working out just fine.
It was a trip into Sonora proper while on extended leave right before the holidays -- a last run for feed and winter supplies before the heavy January snows set in -- when all heck broke loose and Castle realized that his uncle might have been more right than Castle was ready to admit. Before he could get out of town, he had to shoot a half dozen shambling walking dead.
Several weeks later, the bombers flew overhead, and a while after that, mushroom clouds sprang up like, well, mushrooms from San Francisco down south of Los Angeles -- though Castle had no way of knowing just how far south they'd gone. Several hours later, a series of massive earthquakes tore through, even rocking the mountains up where Castle was living. He decided to head up to his Uncle's. He packed up his two painted pintos and enough food and water to cover him for a while if the weather turned on him, and headed north.
Uncle Lourdon had a place for him, of course, and they talked a good piece about how to get through the crisis. However, two months after arriving at Lourdon's bunker, Uncle Lourdon died of a heart attack.
For a good long while, Castle lived out of the bunker, but he was the restless sort, and staying cooped up in one place for months on end just wasn't his thing. He rode out the winter, and into the spring, but by summer, he just couldn't take it any more. He packed up his horses and headed out to find people -- he wasn't sure where he was gonna find them, but he was sure as heck certain he couldn't be the only person left alive in the world.
As he traveled he remembered this movie… The Postman with Kevin Costner. He'd seen it when he was younger, and it made quite an impression on him. He noticed that, for the few people he did meet, they were all isolated, and thought how it might be cool if HE could do something like what Kevin Costner did -- I mean, after all, it was what he was trained for, right?
His first journey was south, towards Point Mugu, to see if there was any hope his daughter was still alive. Yeah, he'd take the ex-wife too, if he had to, but more than anything, he wanted to get his daughter out. He couldn't get close enough to actually see the house -- wasn't anything left to see, and he wondered whether they'd evacuated the healthy folk, whether the Lt. Commander had had enough notice of what was coming that he'd been able to save the wife and daughter -- or even whether the ex was still married to the asshole. Wasn't anything left to see, though, south of Redding.
That was where he found Costco. He got his name because Castle picked him up in a Costco parking lot in Redding. His Geiger counter had been going ape-shit, and he knew it was too hot to go any further... but then he'd heard the yipp yipp yipp, and the little pest had come waddling out, yapping at his ankles, and what the HECK was he supposed t' do. Leave it there to slowly rot away?
The neighborhood beyond the Costco was a nuclear wasteland, where volcanoes actually rose out of the remains of the San Andreas fault. Turned out California HADN'T fallen into the ocean with the next Big One (caused by multiple nuclear warheads falling in and around the fault). Instead, a new Ring of Fire had taken shape along the fault-line, making the area uninhabitable -- a state it would remain in, likely for centuries.
After this, Castle just sort of wandered around -- Heading in a big old half circle out from the ranch, sweeping north, then south, till he found people. He did find them. But he could never bring himself to stay -- instead, he agreed to carry word up and down with him, carrying notes for folk who may have had family here, or there, that they wanted to see were still alive. Slowly, he ranged out pretty far -- where it was weeks, then months of traveling to get back to the ranch or the bunker -- so he gave them to nearby families to live on -- better than the soft-tent camps they were trying to make do with, and after all, he wasn't gonna use them.... and he ranged out, deciding he'd make himself a big old circuit and see what might be left of the United States -- letting the people he met decide his next destination. At one of the small extended-family enclaves he stopped at on his travels, the family members were searching for one of their own, who had gone East with his boss. In trade for supplies, Castle agreed that he'd carry their missive east, and see if he could find this guy, Dusty, and pass on word that he had family still alive out around Klamath Lake.
