#goodluck.characters

Bio:

When you lived as long as Lou, your history goes a bit fuzzy around the edges, but he remembers this much:

He was born of Ireland. Of the rolling green hills and the rich forests and the smell of sweet cream on the breeze. He was a king, once, and a god, before that. Godking of the fertile land he called home, with a name that invoked honor and oathkeeping.

The years went by and The Church descended upon Eire. A priest of that invading God sought to build a house of worship on his land and he put a stop to it. Killed a man of a faith. But not before being cursed--his death would come on the tip of a spear ran through him, just as he'd inflicted upon the priest.

His own gods were still powerful, brought him visions of his death the night before a battle. Like a coward, he fled from the fray. The Morrigan cursed him to wander the world as a madman for his transgression, as untethered and transient as a bird. He lost sense of himself, of time, of place...

And as more years went by and the old ways faded, the Godking once known as Lugh roamed Ireland as a cursed sort of faerie, only invoked by small children playing games and the odd devotee that kept pagan traditions.

It was one of those believers who dragged him across the Atlantic to America. But she forgot him promptly upon arrival and he's been puttering around the continent for the last three hundred years or so, finding scraps of worship where he can--spillover from St. Patrick's day, the occasional neopagan that gets a ritual right, a bit of praise teased from a lover's tongue.

Most recently, he finished a series of outlandish tasks for another of his godly colleagues stuck here in the world's great big melting pot. It earned him his godhood back, even if it didn't wipe his slate clean. So now he calls Goodluck home. Runs a little pub where he can make the rules. Relies on dear @ruby-hampton to keep the place running. And dreams forever and ever of the rolling green hills and rich forests he'll never see again.

Bio:

Born and raised in Goodluck, a high school sweetheart gave Ruby her surname. She'd been all lined up for the move from student council to city council, her family impressed that a girl aspired to such things in little ol' Goodluck.

She served well on the council…Then her husband left her; chasing his mistress to California. And everything went to shit.

Legal fees ate what their house sold for, and Ruby needed a job immediately to afford even her crappy apartment. She absolutely couldn't afford to campaign to remain on the city council, opponents gleefully using her divorce as smear bait.

Thank god Lou appeared, in need of employees for the bar he'd just purchased. She found him incredibly odd, but he offered the best pay in town and didn't seem like a lech. There were worse jobs.

These days Ruby is the one who does the practical work to run the bar. Keeping payroll in order, restocking supplies, bribing the lawmen to look the other way - and sometimes playing nurse when Lou gets out of control.

Bio:

Erik is a man of way too many words. Outgoing and social, there's not a person in Goodluck he wouldn't stop to chat with. Nothing ever seems to bring him down, either, and whether someone finds his positivity infectious or annoying, it's certainly powerful. His winning smile never seems condescending; Erik genuinely cares about the lives of the other residents. He's always eager to help out where people need.

He has to, as the town matchmaker.

With a rumored wild love life of his own, you'd think he'd be celebrating constantly - but what the townsfolk don't know is that those rumors are just that, and Erik never seems to settle for a reason.

Bio:

Max came to be in a town called Ophir, a logging town in Washington state. She's young enough that she still remembers it: a moment of wavering consciousness that caught first small and smoky and then grew as the town grew. At first she wasn’t strong enough to even have form, was simply a presence, once that grew in small increments with every house built, with every resident who made the place their home, was grateful to be there. She watched, and did what she could for those who loved Ophir: small favors, small pieces of luck, some not noticed because they were small aversions preventing disaster.

The town grown, and so did Max. Electricity arrived and she took joyfully to the wires, watching the people, her people, a as presence singing like electricity. She could be a person now, but felt it a poor imitation at first. And so she came to Ophir as a stranger, one who the residents felt oddly tender towards, as if Max was so long lost but distantly loved relative. She worked manual labor, hands on the city she loved.

And then the government came. The town was to be drowned, though that wasn’t the word they used. The truth was couched in promises of relocation money, for the good of the state, a brand new city built at the shores of the lake. It would be years before the project was completed but already people who’d once loved Ophir began to move away. Some stubborn folks stayed and Max clung to their love, until they too were dragged away. And then the town was drowned and Max was alone. She’s been wandering over the land since then, traveling light and working odd jobs, looking for a place to call home.

Bio:

The spirit of Athena, brought to the New World within a block of marble from Greece herself to be placed in a monument in Nashville, Tennessee, the "Athens of the South." Let down by the false worship she found upon it's completion, Ailith searched for those that sought rightful knowledge.

After wandering this new land for eighty years she was called to a place called Goodluck, Kentucky. Before that, she'd rarely met another god of any divinity. Now she was made aware of many. Most Old, some New, and the conflict emerging between them.

Once she had settled she opened Antiquities Avenue, an antique store on the main strip of Goodluck. There she seeks artifacts and relics...and worshipers in the form of those who seek greater knowledge. Carefully, she walks the line in the war between the Old Gods and the New.

Bio:

When you've got a way with words like Rob does, people just can't stop calling out to you. Once upon a time, there wasn't a soul on the west coast of Africa that didn't invoke Elegua before starting a negotiation or setting out on a journey.

But as history goes, journeys from the West Africa became, far and away, the worst kind of nightmare. He was brought to the islands, first. Haiti and Hispaniola and all the foreign lands his worshippers were sent to against their will. He was proud to travel with them--the least a god could do for his people. And he blessed the roads they wandered as best he could, game stacked against them as it was. Gave them what eloquence he had left.

He ended up in Louisiana in the 1890s when a particularly faithful oungan settled in New Orleans. It wasn't home exactly, but it was as near to one as he'd felt in centuries. Incredible music, outstanding food, and an abundance of faith. And America as a whole, for all its faults, had a lot more roads to travel.

He'd always had a soft spot for crossroads. Call him a romantic--the symbolism was just too delicious. He met and blessed all sorts of wanderers, but among them, his favorite was a musician. An old soul if there ever was one. They became good friends and he even inspired a song or two. It felt only fitting, after the icon passed, that his name live on.

So in the early 1940s, Papa Legba, formerly Elegua, now Rob Johnson meandered into backwoods Kentucky. Dangerous territory for a black man traveling alone, but his words had never failed him. It took him all of six months to be elected mayor.

It's a small town. Never seems to make the news. Is absolutely chocked full of inexplicable bullshit, but Rob's the right man to keep a lid on it. Always has a neat and tidy explanation. And if any high-and-mighty sort is looking to come in and cause trouble, they gotta get past him first.

Bio:

Rising from Irish folklore, the triple goddess is now most often associated with war, fate and death. A gifted shapeshifter, she both appeared to and was invoked by warriors before battle. She often appeared to test a favored mortal, to see if they were worthy of her arcane gift.

As mankind modernized, as Christianity spread, The Morrigan's power narrowed. No longer able to declare sovereignty, she has also lost her association with the fertility of Ireland.

In the 90s, the rise of new-age, divine feminine, paganism revitalized The Morrigan. She chased the power to America, settling in Goodluck, where a devout believer had called to her.

Now, her dairy farm lives and dies by the strength of belief in The Morrigan, inspiring her to hew to Old Gods.

Bio:

Duncan is a quiet man, often communicating more with looks than words. The silence suits him. At night, alone in his apartment, he can feel blood soaking the earth. He can hear the artillery shelling whole neighborhoods. Duncan can taste the poison being fed into fishing holes. In this modern world, being the God of War is hell.

During the day it’s easier to ignore. He throws himself into his work - keeping Goodluck safe. As sheriff he mostly deals with drunks and domestic disputes, because the town isn’t wild, but sometimes he gets to jump into a brawl or knock some sense into a real piece of shit, and then he almost feels like himself again.

War never stops. War never releases its claws. For eons he’s felt the power of conflict and it’s no different now. All that’s changed is his willingness to answer the call. Duncan graces no battlefields. He blesses no soldiers. He shuts his mind against the screams and channels his power into boxing. Video games, too, sometimes. And of course he’s a fixture at Lou’s bar.