Elias Belpage, "The Decayed"

From Axalon RPG

Elias Belphage

"The Decayed"

Zombie hitman/acquiry specialist

Muscle: 4

Guts: 7

Nerve: 2

Sense: 3

Brains: 3

Unholy Stick-to-it-iveness: 8

Belphage is a gangly man with solid, cord-like muscles, ashy gray skin with mottled greenish patches, milky white eyes, and unkempt brown hair. He tends to acquire fresh new suits after every unearthing- nice black ones with string ties. He sometimes goes in for more casual outfits- jeans, T-shirt, and battered brown coat. His body, what little he shows, is covered in Band-Aids, stitches, and patches of duct tape, which still won't prevent parts from occasionally falling off. There's a long metal screw sticking out of the left side of his neck. When he speaks, dust tends to fall from his mouth, yet he has a rich and cultured baritone, and more disturbingly, a perfectly maintained and pearly white set of teeth.

Slain in the Deadman's Gulch Massacre of October 24th, 1825, after a life of hardship, violence, and debauchery, Belphage's last breath contained a simultaneous curse towards all goodness in humanity and a promise that he'd come back to plague the defenders of the law, and a request that his body be stuffed full of his ill-gained gold before burial, and a well-worded insult to his killer's mother's honor. Belphage made his last breath count. Nearly two hundred years later, the Decayed, as he came to be known, still will not rest in peace. It's said that on the stroke of midnight, on the anniversary of his death, you leave an envelope full of cash and a picture of who you want dead buried in the soil of his grave somewhere along the Way- he will rise, and he will not stop until the person or persons in the picture is dead.

He doesn't know who this Green fellow is, aside from a lingering feeling of familiarity, but ten thousand dollars American is ten thousand dollars American. Time to hitch a ride...

Belphage is oddly verbose and well-mannered, always speaking politely and at length. Severely at length. This clashes greatly with his shambling appearance, savage but calculated fighting style, and dirty deadly duties. Occasionally, when angered, this facade seems to slip and a more feral, angry zombie shows through, to be quickly swept back under civility. Elias is rarely interested in killing anyone besides the assignment, and rather enjoys sitting down with friends for a few hands of cards or catching one of those delightful moving pictures. Unfortunately, it's hard to make friends or lady-friends when you're only at large every other decade and little pieces of you tend to molder and fall off. Elias' unique curse prevents him from returning to the grave for good- if someone requests his services, he must rise. It's begun to grate on him, actually. But what can a fellow do?

Equipment/Abilities: My Loudmouthed Companions: The Decayed carries a pair of old Civil War-era pistols, coated in rust and clotted with dirt. Despite their appearance of complete obsolescence, they fire perfectly and with seemingly no end of bullets while in his hands. In addition to these arcane antiquities, he has a small one-shot pistol, a hunting rifle, several small but deadly sharp throwing knives, and other poorly kept but skillfully used weapons- that and whatever he happens to find lying around.

Zombie Power: The Decayed isn't unstoppable, but just a few degrees south of it. Although his extremities practically have to be stapled on, the core of him responds to any assault with little registration of pain and steady regeneration of important parts. He's been shot, stabbed, burnt, crushed, dropped, dismembered, electrocuted, drowned, hung, drawn and quartered, keelhauled, frozen, run down, run over, run through, run off, and run into the ground. He's doing okay, though.

Point A to Point B: Ever since horses and wagons went out of style as the primary means of transportation, the Decayed has become something of a car nut. Back in the 50's, he bought (not stole, legitimately purchased! How novel!) a big, monstrous black roadster with leather seating, blood-red fins, a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror and a big mother of an engine under the hood. Rumors say the car itself isn't exactly just a mindless machine. Nobody but Belphage knows where to find it, and at a whistle, it comes roaring to him. He calls it Black Sunshine.