Casey Scott Rogers

Appearance: Casey Rogers is a American Continental, born in the French territory of Iriquois-Detriot. He has sandy brown hair, brown eyes and a tall lanky frame. The Rogers family have been furriers and trappers for generations, dealing at times with the English, the French, various Indian Nations, and for a short time the failed Continental Liberation Congress. As such, Casey is at ease moving from culture to culture, swapping English for French patois, and three dialects of Native American, albeit in limited pidgin form. He is what many Europeans consider to be the Enlightened Continental, a man of stature and intelligence, capable of accepting more than just a single language and without pretenses of 'freedom' and 'tyranny' as so many Continentals espouse. He has also gained some of the noble savage em>je ne sais quoi without adopting their barbarian or heathen customs. Casey, despite his handling of language and custom, is ill at ease around people of noble pedigree and around officers of various military institutions. He speaks with a hestitant voice, and is an unfortunate coward. He has no real ability to fight, but is able to dodge and evade quite efficiently, as well as to know when to run like Hell when the situation warrants.

His dress is casual, usually a pair of dark brown leather leggings, usually of Indian style and a hunter's green vest. When he does hunt, he is a competent tracker, and a dead shot with a rifle or a bow. When he points a weapon at another person, his aim drastically decreases and he will border on having an anxiety attack. Casey is seldom if ever seen away from his dog, a large Belgian malinois named Frankie. The malinois is a breed similar in appearance to a German sheperd, but is smaller and more agile. Frankie is an oddity for the breed, as he has blue eyes. Casey and Frankie seem to share an almost unbreakable bond, and the two compliment each other easily. Frankie wears a plain leather collar with a set of Continental Militia soldiers tags hanging from it, the name: Francis Silverman.

Background: Casey would have been a hunter and trapper just like his father before him if it hadn't been for a single incident. One of the defining characteristics of Continental America is the simmering warfare between the European powers. Rather than fight each other in Europe, France, Spain, England, and Prussia are all quite content to fight out their agression with each other across the ocean. The presence of the Indian Nations and the small free Republics like Texas and California just make it all the more interesting. The Rogers household was decimated in a border war betweeen the Iriquois Nation and English interests. Casey survived the attack and ended up be pressed into the British militia. After the fighting was over, he wasn't released, the army considered his ability to speak 'injun' both an asset to them, and him unsupervised as a liability. Thus Casey Rogers became a soldier in the Queen's Royal Army. As a linguistics officer, the only field he did well in, he found himself promoted several times. His ability to not be killed was also noted and he soon found himself being pushed into more dangerous and risky missions.

Casey would eventually find himself picked by a bold expeditioneer with plans on reaching the North Pole of the world. Along with two ships, a detachment of Royal Marines, supplies, porters, and dozen other like minded explorers, Rogers was shipped north to the endless snow and ice of the Arctic. What happened afterwards is a mystery. The ships were lost, the Marines all died, and the explorers froze to death on the ice they so vainly tried to conquer. Rogers survived miraculously and returned south. He offically went AWOL, but there are no listings looking for him, as according to the records, he is dead. He returned in the company of his trusty dog, found during his trevails of the blasted north country.

Special Equipment: Casey is a resourceful man, and seldom lacks for the things he needs to get by. For exceptional gear and items he seldom if ever has anything of more than token or sentimental value. He dislikes weaponry and violence, and due to a mixture of sloth and cowardice isnt the sort to hold down the sort of job required to own a horse, or steam carriage. He is never without Frankie, nor without access to some amount of food. From his time and near starvation on the ice, there are few food combinations that are revolting to him, shy of being genuinely rotten.

Roleplaying Notes: Casey is through and through a coward, and his experience on the ice has proven to him the fragility of life and how hollow the pursuit of material gain is. The men with him were millionaires and captains of men and they died just like the dirt poor porters hired to carry their tea sets and crates of tobacco. While in the north, Rogers made the acquaintance of a man named Francis Silverman. Silverman was a member of the Royal Theosophical Society, a clairvoyant, psychic, and otherwise esoteric seeker of mysteries. During their travel across the ice, Silverman awoke the parapsychic potential within Rogers. There was not time enough to train Rogers to use and control his newfound capabilities as Silverman was among the injured who lingered on the trip. While traveling to the pole, the Expedition discovered a cyclopean temple in the ice. Many of the men were driven mad, Silverman was among the dead, and Rogers barely escaped alive. Between the glimpse of chaos and eternity he was exposed to in the temple and his newly awakened powers, Rogers was able to force Silverman's soul into a still living vessel, the captain of the Expedition's dog Champ. Silverman's soul, intellect and psyche lives on as Frankie the dog. His mind is a bit more canine now, but he maintains an innate ability to telepathically communicate with Rogers as well as share senses. From a game perspective, Frankie functions as an exceptional familiar and has human level intelligence.

Casey functions as a Manchurian Candidate, as he has been exposed to the raw stuff of cosmic horror without the previous mindset enjoyed by typical paranormal researchers, sorcerers, or other practitioners of magic. He is the wild card, and with the advantages of his canine companion, and outward cowardice and powerful piece on the chess board.