Alexandria Graves

Full Name: Veronica Alexandria Graves ("Alex")

Profession: Law Dog

History

"Name's Graves. Alexandria Graves. I usually go by Alex. My first name is Veronica, but not many people call me that…"

"I was born in northern Texas in a small town out in the country. The name isn't important; it got bombed into a pile of shit during the war anyway. What is important is my family. See, a long time ago back in the old west, my ancestor Alexander Graves was something of a legend. He was always known for carrying around a bunch of guns and using them to kill outlaws and monsters. You might say he was a hero. He even rode around on a horse that belonged to Satan himself!"

"One day, he decided it was time to settle down, so he got married and started a family. His son followed in his father's footsteps, and so did many members of the Graves family as time passed. At least until the late 20th/early 21st century, that is. My great grandfather Christopher Graves wasn't quite as altruistic as many of the other members of the family were. In fact, he was downright rotten. Unfortunately for him (and for the rest of the family), he crossed a powerful Old Wayer shaman one time and got himself cursed. And this curse was nasty, too — it wasn't the kind that died with Chris. No, it affected every direct descendant of him after that from their 21st birthday onward."

"The way it manifests is different, but the basics are the same — the cursed has to perform good deeds, whether they want to or not, else bad things start to happen. The consequences vary from person to person, though. Grandpa Daniel had cancer that was in remission, and it would start causing problems if he didn't fight the good fight. My mother Annalisa had an old wound from a car accident in her teenage years that would start to open up again. Me…well, I'll get to that in a minute."

"I was thirteen when the bombs fell, so I'm twenty-six now. Almost six years ago, I was in a small town in western Texas. A road gang rode into town and started causing trouble. Unfortunately, a lot of the able-bodied people were under the weather from some kind of disease (including me — I still suffer from some remnant of that sickness, whatever it was), so they couldn't mount much of a defense. Still, a fight eventually broke out, and somehow the gangers were dead by the end of it. Unfortunately, so was I."

"Yep, I'm a harrowed. A walking corpse. It still didn't let me escape from my family's curse, though — if I ignore people in trouble, I start to rot. I guess the demon inside of me can't keep up with it. I figure I got the short end of the stick, all things considered — the west is much more dangerous these days. Ain't much I can do about it though…"

"Anyway, I pretty much live like Alexander did. I ride around the west and help anyone who needs it. I even use the same guns he did; they've been handed down in my family. I'm one of the Law Dogs, too, and I've learned some of the old-school Shootist hexes that some hexslingers used to practice back in the day. It's a dangerous life, but at least I'm going to do some good before I croak a second and final time."

The Curse

If Alex ignores people who are in need of help (significant need, not minor things like cats stuck in trees) she will wake up the next day with one additional level of the Degeneration harrowed hindrance. If she already has five levels of this hindrance she dies. Good actions will negate these levels on a one for one basis.

The curse is pretty smart. Alex does not have to take on problems that she has no hope of winning — for example, the curse will not compel her to charge into Denver alone. A platoon of black hats on the other hand would need killin' if Alex doesn't want to rot. On the other hand, it overlooks minor problems, like finding a petty thief who stole someone's wallet (though mitigating circumstances may exist). Her experience with the curse gives Alex a pretty good idea of what will trigger it and what won't (ie, the marshal needs to let the player know).

Shootist Hexes

Alex's shootist hexes (including Kentucky Windage, Rapid Fire, and Missed Me) are powered by the spirits of the Law Dogs, Texas Rangers, and good gunslingers that have gone before. She suffers no additional backlash effects when using them and can learn them simply by spending 5 bounty points. A black joker still produces backlash though, for 4d10 massive damage that ignores armor.

Alex can learn other tricks and regular hexes, but this must be done the normal way, via a copy of Hoyle's Book of Games and Academia Occult rolls.

Back to Donnie's Campaign

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License