# The Journal of Thad Franklin



## Pall Bearer (Apr 28, 2003)

Hi all,

I decided, more as a lark than for any other reason, to start posting the on going Journals from our present D20 Modern game and I wondered if anyone else is doing this in this way? Anyhow, here is the Journal from the first session that we started keeping journals in. If anyone is interested in the story, more will follow.

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So, where shall I begin? Mortlake thought it would be good for us, theraputic, if we were to each, seperately, to record the events of this “crisis point” in time to which we, the five of us, have been consigned. I disagree with him, of course, that we are any kind of metaphysical champions. I don’t disagree that we are “metaphysically” oriented beings, we five, anymore or less so than those we so often face; what I disagree with is that we are “champions” of any stamp or variety. I don’t believe in the concept of champions anymore than I believe in the concept of fate that he and Christine so often prattle on about. Not that my life is what anyone would describe as normal… nor has it ever been.

I was born in the dark of the moon during a solstice time in a place of power. My parents were an odd pair, a dyed in the wool Wiccan adventuress and a former RC priest, thrust from his Order for trafficking with the dark forces, now a rogue Thelemite, as even Thelema was too restrictive for his tastes. While even today that would be odd enough, in the late 70’s, in rural New Jersey, it was almost unthinkable. Maybe they both had accomplished just enough that the child of their illicit union was really born with that “little psychic twinkle”, as King calls it. Whatever the case of it, neither was stable enough to want to keep me and I never knew them. They did have family though… more’s the pity.

I was raised between both families… my mothers, who raised me when I was young, in the spirit of the hippie free love nonsense and my fathers, when my mothers family decided that the further care of a eight year old boy ran counter to their “experiencing” life and my fathers in a strict RC tradition afterwards. Needless to say, I left my paternal uncle’s house as soon as I thought it even vaguely possible to do so successfully. I’ve always been careful that way. I never just jump without counting the costs. Claire says it’s the irresistible mercenary in me. Hell, she might be right.

My uncle was sure that I was the spawn of the devil whenever he was drunk and with my aunt’s connivance, he would then try desperately to “beat the devil out of me”. He would be ohh, so remorseful when he was sober though, that I almost fell into his traps. He could see the difference in me because the difference lay, suppressed and submerged, in him as well. I did get a decent education through the good RC Grade School and High School

So… sixteen years old scarred and scared, but determined that now was the right time, I left my uncle and aunt and all the plethora of religious idiocy behind me. “Back there, over my shoulder”, as Jimmy would say. That may be the only thing that remains to me of my earliest years… that weird fixation on the music of my parent’s era. Hendricks, the Doors, Joplin, they are all more moving to me than what most people my age call music. In a way I do still fit in with the hippies more than with the punks. So what?

Well, I learned young too to begin to control this, this weirdness, that is my lot in life. Why do I have it? Not, as Mortlake would have us believe, because of some guiding benevolence. How anyone who is such an accomplished mage could believe in such meaningless, asinine crap; I’ll never know. That much I feel sure of. I simply think that all this abnormality is normal… for me. I can see through the shadows that most people carefully construct to protect their minds from the reality of reality.

So, there are five of us that are drawn into this web of time/space, this fixation of weirdness and non-conformity. Why I’m involved is sometimes beyond me. I guess if I am to be really honest about it, it’s because I’m really desperate to get into Christine’s pants and nothing more noble than that. Well, hey, I know it’s shallow and probably hopeless, since Chris seems more interested in Claire than in me. (Damn, why are all the good ones probably gay? And why do I sound like the stereotypical woman talking about some cute guy she has hot pants for?) Still, you know, it’s become absorbing too. Of course it will probably kill me, Christine, all of us.

I guess maybe that’s why I am writing this thing, this journal, like a letter to myself. I think maybe that I’m looking to really understand why, other than hormones on over drive, I’m dumb enough to do this. I mean, our chances of survival, especially after last week, look awfully slim. Ok, enough bemoaning my decisions. On with the meat and potatoes.

There are five of us. Andrew Henry Richard Mortlake junior, my “fellow mage”, and a complete nut case. He seems more like the weirded out, wired out acolyte of some insane Jesus/Yoda crossbreeding than a man who has spent his entire life studying magick. Heck, even so, he can only play around with scrolls and charms and formula he’s prepared ahead of time. I won’t even pretend to understand half of what he does. He’s the oldest of us; a still well kept forty three year old, with a background in forensics no less. His two friends are no less weird even though neither has any real metaphysic ability. Claire Andrucci, a wanna be gun-moll transferred from the roaring twenties by her attitude, the slang she affects and the way she dresses, but a cute thing that you’d never think would be involved in anything unsavory. She’s a electronics wizard too and knows her way around the inside of an engine better than anyone else I know, so no matter how much she acts like Ma Barker I guess we can put up with it. Frank Greene is a pretty standard guy on the surface… a former cop, a man’s man, and all of that, but he really talks to the big double-bitted axe he carries when things get weirder than bullets can handle and he talks to himself in the third person sometimes. The guy just gives me the creeps. 

Then there is Tina Christine Hanna, the toughest and sexiest woman I’ve ever met, and as dab a hand with a knife as anyone is ever likely to meet. She’s a twenty six year old, stone fox. Those long blonde tresses and those muscular arms make her look like something out of an erotic/heroic fantasy porno. I swear though, that she can “smell” the weirdness. I’ve never seen anything like it. Mortlake is half convinced that she’s some kind of hereditary “demon hunter” and he’s got me considering if such a thing might be possible. It’s just too odd how easily she finds anything that’s out of place.

Finally, you’ve got me. I can handle myself well enough. You don’t survive where I have if you can’t, psychic twinkle or no, but I’m no Jackie Chan either. What I am is a weird guy who can work “old time magick” in the real world. Of course, most people who see me do it think it’s something, anything, else. Just like they do with the shadows. And yes, that does give me pause to think at times.

So, that’s us. The five weirdoes who chase the weirdness that the rest of the world ignores. Ok, enough for one night. I’m going to bed. I’ll get cracking on what happened last week tomorrow sometime.

**TF**

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Pall Bearer


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## Henry (Apr 28, 2003)

Pall Bearer, this would technically go under our Story Hour forum, where there are quite a few ongoing d20 Modern stories being told about people's current campaigns. I moved your thread under there, but please feel free to keep going! I'm finding it interesting myself.


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## Cinerarium (Apr 28, 2003)

*Great Journal!*

Hey PB!

Great start to your story hour -- and there are others doing journal-type story hours out there -- namely me (shameless plug for my Twilight Paths Campaign story hour).

Is the rest of the group keeping journals as well?  It'd be cool to tie all of them together, to get everyone's different perspectives on the action.

And I like that your character's from rural NJ... grew up there myself.

So keep it coming!


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## Pall Bearer (Apr 29, 2003)

*Ooops.*

Hi all,

My appologises Henry... I somehow missed this on the forum list.  In fact, I missed this place (Story Hour) all together.  Well, I've got some real reading to catch up on now I guess.  Thanks much.

Cinerarium,

Thanks for the encouragement.  I will start reading through yours as well as soon as I post this.  As to the others posting.... hey, I can hardly get anyone else to even keep journals, which was part of the reason for my prefacing question.  It's good to see that I'm not as alone as I thought.


PB


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