30 POWs

1-The Escape Risk

Whilst nearly all prisoners, not just prisoners of war but criminals and hostages as well, have early fantasies of escaping confinement, most of them get used to it and soon give up their dreams of freedom. Not the Escape Risk, who has successfully escaped three times and been recaptured every time. The third time, he was nearly shot for the trouble that his escape caused, but by chance  a general was visiting the area and saw him being hauled away to face a firing squad.

When the general asked what he was being executed for and found out that it was for escaping, it turned out that the general had once been a POW in an earlier war as a young lieutenant and had made a successful escape back to his own lines and so had a soft spot for escaping POWs and cancelled the execution. Although if he escapes again and his caught he is very likely to be shot, that does not stop the Escape Risk from trying to get away.

2-The Content

A draftee, the Content never wanted to fight in the war in the first place. Whilst he too wishes he was free he is content to stay in the prison camp, keep his head down to avoid trouble from both the prison guards and his fellow prisoners, and wait for the war to end. He is not a snitch, but he is not a would be escapee either. The camp is warm, safe, and the rations are enough to survive on.

3-The Lawyer

The Lawyer was a lawyer before he joined the army and he knows all the details of the equivalent of the Geneva Convention for the world that he is in and is not afraid to quote them to the prison guards and the Camp Commandant when he feels that he needs to. Despite serving more than one stint in the cooler because of this habit, he has managed to improve the lives of his fellow prisoners of war and is a popular man with them as a result.

4-The Traitor

The Traitor has strong feelings about the war and wants to be free and fighting for it- on the side of  the country that has taken him prisoner. He is considering asking the Commandant to either let him become a prison guard or to let him join the army that is fighting against his country in exchange for his freedom. If he does this and his own country that he was born in wins the war, he will surely go to the gallows as a traitor, unless he manages to escape being found and arrested.

5-The Lover

This man has found a way to break out of his prison camp and almost every night he does this, and goes to the house of his girlfriend who he met before the war began. After a night of romance and passion with her, he breaks back into his prison camp before dawn to make sure he is in his place for the 10:00AM roll call.Nobody knows about his nightly escapes and he does not want the Escape Risk to find out about it and escape for real, as then security would be greatly increased and he would be unable to see his girlfriend.

6-The Jonah

The Jonah is depressed about being stuck in a prison camp, far from his home and family, and is worried that his wife is cheating on him. He’s bored, frustrated and even the Bright Side of Life is unable to cheer him up for very long.

7-The Bright Side of Life

Despite being imprisoned, the Bright Side of Life never seems to be unhappy. He tells jokes and funny stories, and at the great festivals of the year he manages to find ways to celebrate, giving his fellow prisoners small and often forbidden gifts, like a piece of wire for the Toolmaker or a hand written book for the Boredom. It was he who came up with the idea that on someone’s birthday the other prisoners could act out scenes for them, for example pretending to be shopkeepers if he wants to go shopping. He is the most popular prisoner in the camp.

8-The Planner

Whilst he never tries to escape from the prison camp himself, the Planner has helped plan a score of escapes, at least one of which was successful. Only the Officer Commanding knows of his identity, which is just as well as the Spy would happily betray him to the guards if he could. The Planner takes great pleasure in helping his fellow prisoners to escape.

9-The Domestic Raider

This deeply unpleasant fellow steals from the Red Cross packages of his fellow prisoners, and framed the Unpopular for it so the Unpopular got beaten up by his fellow prisoners, although they left his face unmarked to avoid the guards finding out. If he is found out the other prisoners will certainly give him a beating at the very least.

10-The Unpopular 

Before he was taken as a POW, the Unpopular very much kept to himself and was never very good at making friends. He got much more unpopular when the Domestic Raider stole some Red Cross packages that belonged to other prisoners and planted them under his bed so the other POWs thought he had stolen them and beat him up, leaving his face unmarked so the guards didn’t see his beating at the next roll call.

11-The Sarge

Sarge keeps the other POWs in order, reports complaints to the guards, tries to keep up morale, and metes out unofficial punishments for badly behaved prisoners like beatings when the Officer Commanding orders him to. The other POWs don’t much like him, but they do grudgingly respect his authority.

12-The Drunk

Drunk has made a secret still to ferment fruit into alcohol, but if he is successful he risks giving away the secret by ending up stupidly drunk, as he does not know when to stop when it comes to drinking alcohol.

13-The Cooler

Out of all the prisoners he has spent the most time in the camp’s internal jail, the cooler, for such things as sneaking out of his hut after sunset, refusing to preform forced labour and swearing at the guards, and his fellow prisoners admire his seemingly unbreakable spirit.

14-The Depressed

The Depressed is the most unhappy man in the camp, and has considered “ suicide by cop” more than once, by walking over the “ dead line” and straight up to the wire fence in full view of the guards. The Bright Side of Life is worried about him and tries often to bring him out of his misery without much success.

15-The Storyteller

The Storyteller is one of the more popular POWs because of his ability to entertain his fellows with stories of various kinds during their time off forced labour. He and the Storywriter hope to get a story published once the war is over and share the profits from it.

16-The Boredom

The Boredom is bored most of the time- when doing forced labour for his captors, when walking around the camp during his time off, and even when listening to most of the Storyteller’s stories. He deeply wishes that his own side would hurry up and win the war and set him free from his irksome confinement.

17-The Spit and Polish

The Spit and Polish always looks good, is convinced firmly in the justice of the war and joined up as a volunteer, becoming a lance corporal before getting captured. If he had not had the misfortune to end up in a prisoner of war camp, he would probably either have earned a battlefield commission or ended up in a coffin. He had the Ani War cannot abide each other and have had many bitter arguments about the war.

18-The Anti War

A very unwilling conscript soldier, the Ani War never wanted to fight in the first place and sees no point in the war. He refuses to try and escape, although he is no snitch. The Spit and Polish hates him, and the feeling is mutual, and the two have nearly come to blows during their arguments more then once.

19-The Toolmaker

One of the POWs who actively tries to escape on a regular basis, the Toolmaker turns small pieces of wire into lock picks, pieces of wood into improvised spades, and managed to smuggle in a penknife which he has used to help manufacture more illegal escape aids. He is close to attempting an escape of his own, the day after his birthday.

20-The Officer Commanding 

The Officer Commanding is in de facto charge of his fellow POWs within the prison camp, maintaining discipline and cleanliness, encouraging escapes, detecting snitches and cell thieves and punishing them, and trying to keep up morale and esprit de corps. He is respected but often not much liked by his fellow prisoners as they often think he is too strict towards them.

21-The Spy

The Spy was taken before the guards after being caught trying to escape, and agreed to become a snitch in exchange for extra rations and other such minor comforts. He has foiled at least one escape tunnel that would have resulted in a mass escape, and if the other prisoners ever find out about his treachery, they will be very likely to strangle him to death.

22-The Fitness Freak

The Fitness Freak likes running around, doing press ups and sit ups and using books as weights to fight boredom and make himself fit and good looking at the same time. Some of the other prisoners dislike him for working hard at prison work, but he tells them he just does it for the exercise and none of them fancy their chances in a one on one fight with him.

23-The Storywriter

A close friend of the Storyteller, the Storywriter spends his free time writing a story that he hopes to see published one day when the war is over and he gets out of the prison camp. The two have created an imaginary world together.

24-The Desperate 

The best friend of the Escape Risk, the Desperate is desperate to escape and return to the war, and has twice tried to escape, once staying free for five days before being recaptured.

25-The War Criminal 

Whilst the other POWs are just that, captured soldiers who have to be kept locked up to stop them fighting, the War Criminal was responsible for slaughtering over a hundred civilians on the other side and attacking a hospital as well. He very much hopes not to be uncovered and facing either a trial or a quiet execution for his war crimes. He keeps his head down and behaves himself. He neither tries to escape nor informs on anyone who does.

26-The Troublemaker 

The Troublemaker delights in breaking the rules of the prison camp and annoying the guards, although never quite enough to risk getting himself shot. He has been in the cooler more often then not and has earned the respect of the other prisoners, and he Camp Commandant deeply dislikes him to the point where he is considering having him “ shot whilst trying to escape.”

27-The Guard’s Pet

The Guard’s Pet has gone out of his way to be helpful to the guards and when confronted by his fellow prisoners talked his way out of a beating or worse by telling them he was doing it to make it easier for him to escape once the guards had let their own guard down around him. Now he makes the Commandant’s tea.

The Commanding Officer of the POWs is suspicious of him and has given him a deadline of three months to at least make a serious effort at escaping, but the Guard’s Pet secretly enjoys his life free of forced labour and does not want to escape.

28-The Secret One

The Secret One is secretly a changeling, but he does not have enough love energy in his body’s love sacs to do more than sustain his existing disguise. So he can’t take the shape of one of the guards and walk out of there, or fly off in the dead of night on dragonfly like wings. This is intensely frustrating for him and he is looking for a chance to fang and cocoon a guard to steal enough love to make a successful escape. 

29-The Lousy

The Lousy is bad at keeping himself clean and suffers from body lice as a result, ripping his skin open , preferring pain to the itching, and non of his fellow POWs want to get close to him in case his infection spreads to them. They occasionally drag him to the showers for his own good and theirs.

30-The Pilot 
Unlike the other prisoners who were army men, the Pilot was flying a fighter plane before he had one dogfight too many and got himself shot down over enemy territory. When the sky is blue and the weather his fine, he often looks up at the sky and wishes that he was back in action shooting down the foe. He is one of the prisoners who longs to escape and return to the battlefield again to do their duty for their country.