Everything

Some folks don’t fit anywhere but in between the cracks of society. Addicted, mentally ill, broken, or just too damned stubborn to play nice within a false-faced world, these people live on whatever they can beg, borrow, scrounge up, or steal. We’re not talking here about the poor folks who’ve lost their homes through a quirk of fate or finances, but about people who’ve given up on mainstream America and now exist in a precarious state of freedom.

For better and worse, these people are survivors. Kick at them, and they’ll kick back harder. By and large they’re not “criminals” in the usual sense of the word, though, if only because crime involves too much risk. When you can’t get patched up on your medical plan, after all, or hit the medicine cabinet for some bandages or antiseptic, there’s not much benefit in looking for trouble. Most of these folks get by on whatever they can find without sticking their necks out too far. Oh, but they see what’s going on around them — all too well, more often than not. Because homeless folks are considered “un-people” by the average citizen, they tend to blend into surroundings that most folks prefer not to notice and try not to care about. As a result, these people — and they are still people, after all — make helpful allies, nasty enemies, and willing (if unreliable) sources of information, redemption, or even friendship for folks who treat them with respect.

Suggested Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Charisma 1, Manipulation 3, Appearance 1, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 1

Suggested Abilities: Alertness 2, Area Knowledge 3, Brawl 2, Crafts 1, Intimidation 2, Melee 2, Stealth 2, Streetwise 3, Survival 3, Technology 1

Willpower: 4

Health Levels: OK, ‒1, ‒1, ‒2, ‒ 2, ‒5, Incapacitated

Equipment: Whatever personal possessions and improvised weapons they can easily keep within reach.

Image: Ragged but possessing a distinct sense of pride, if only for having survived through the awful things they’ve encountered along the way, a “hardcore homeless” sort of person could be a grizzled veteran, backpacking vagabond, aging street kid, mumbling addict, glaring bag-lady, or any other “un-person” that “polite society” strives not to recognize as human. Although such folks tend to intimidate the average citizen (especially in the World of Darkness, where a street survivor must be truly badass to live for long), they usually prefer to be avoid trouble and be left to their own devices. For very good reasons, they don’t often trust society to give a shit what happens to them, and so it’s not worth the risk of trying to make trouble.

Roleplaying Notes: In an ugly, world, you’ve got to grab what you can for you and yours. Watch your back, protect your friends, and be no one’s victim if you can possibly avoid it.

Brain

He used to be Brian. These days, he’s Brain. Why? Maybe because the girl who named him was dyslexic as hell and kept scrambling up his name. Maybe because he speaks in words more suited to a college classroom than to the homeless part of town. Perhaps it’s because he reads all the time, whatever he can get: cereal boxes, discarded newspapers, the books he scrounges from bookstore dumpsters and occasionally receives from sympathetic passersby. He’s smart, and people know it. Some folks resent him for it, too, but when someone’s got a question or needs a dispute resolved, they often to go Brain.

Especially when there’s almost nothing left of your life, you do what you have to do.

Brian was a quiet guy before he lost damned near everything. Decent job as an architectural engineer. Nice house. No long-term partner but a lot of flings when he could pry himself away from the office, books, or both. But then came the epilepsy, the Parkinson’s Disease, and a bad fall (caused by his faltering coordination) down a set of icy steps. Brian’s insurance took care of some of the injury, but the rest was chalked up to “pre-existing conditions.” Shaky hands made him useless to the company, so the company began easing Brian out the door. Skyrocketing coverage premiums, chronic pain, shattered concentration and bad office politics drained Brian’s bank account, cost him his job, and plunged him into intractable depression. Slightly over a year after his fall, Brian was on the street. Not long afterward, he became known as Brain.

At first, he was sleeping in his car. Then some assholes smashed the windows in for laughs. The cops towed it off when Brain was out scoring food. Everything that wasn’t on his back wound up gone. With his shaky hands and constant pain, Brain wasn’t able to contribute much to the folks he met among the homeless communities… not much but his ability to solve problems and give advice. When asked, he can still provide all manner of trivia and near-Socratic wisdom. Trouble is, he’s so depressed, so often in pain, and so frequently high from whatever he’s able to score to help him deal with the other problems that Brain’s not up for anything that demands concentration or work for more than a few minutes at a time. Most days, he just holes up in a chair at a strategic spot on a freeway ramp, swaths himself in blankets and coats, and reads whatever he’s got that day. Sure, he’s got a few friends who look after him and beat the crap out of anyone who dares to mess with Brain, and a steady and

protected spot where the begging is pretty good. Beyond that, though, Brain is a pain-wracked dude who’s waiting to die, with a body that won’t let him heal but refuses to let him go.

You’ll usually find Brain hunched in his battered folding garden chair, huddled up against the weather and reading intently while cars roll by. If you catch his eye, Brain might say “Thank you” in a cracked-pavement voice, then duck away before someone can take offense or think he’s being too familiar. Pain and Parkinson’s Disease wrack his body with perpetual shaking, and the smell of old pot and unwashed skin is obvious to anyone who stands too close. Brain’s light-blue eyes peer out of a lined parchment face, darkened by dirt and whatever sunlight reaches through his layers of protection. He moves slowly, eyes downcast, whenever he rises from his chair, and sleeps whenever he feels safe enough to doze off… which, admittedly, isn’t often. He’ll read anything you hand him, but he’ll rarely say more than a few words to you unless he knows you’re not a threat. At night, he often crashes with a pack of folks who pitch tents in the bushes along the highway, under the overpass, in an abandoned house, or wherever it is they can crash for a night or two before the cops drive them off again. Those folks keep Brain in reading material, drive off human parasites, and share whatever they have that might make him sleep a little better or hurt a little less.

Some nights, Brain dreams of the life he had. Other nights, of the death he craves. Most nights, he doesn’t remember what he dreams… only that he’s past the point where dreams are anything more than bad jokes spat in his face by God until the night he never has to dream again.