Dennis has always been good at putting people together, it’s a gift. He sees the world in terms of “need” and “ability” and it seemed only natural to facilitate. He grew up cutting deals and negotiating in the playground and transferred this talent into his adult life. It wasn’t just an obsession, it was the only way he could think to be.
Occultists could be forgiven for assuming this would make Dennis a natural avatar of the Salesman, Opportunist or even Demagogue. He isn’t. Dennis never cut deals for their own sake, he helped people who needed it. He didn’t grasp at opportunity or achievement, he made sacrifices for people. He didn’t manipulate, he convinced honestly. Dennis inspires loyalty, respect and munificence. He is a True King.
Back in the very early 00s Dennis’s haunt was the diner his dad, a hardware sales rep, had been bringing him to since he was a kid. After an aborted career as a stockbroker it was the place he made his living, doing the only thing he could. He sat in a booth by the back corner all day and people would come and tell him about their problems. Big, small, didn’t matter. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew Dennis and what he was about, he would help you out and in return if you could help someone else out in the future that would be great. You were looked after so long as you were loyal. It was an ad hoc system and often as not Dennis got paid tribute in excess sporting equipment or antiques but it worked for all involved.
Then the occult underground stuck its nose in. Dennis had brushed by it before, he understood what he is, but by and large his activities ran adjacent rather than intersecting with the underground’s madness. This changed when an itinerant, trouble-making Salesman avatar set up shop on Dennis’s turf. “The Stray” took Dennis for a rival and was deliberately antagonistic, undermining his support of the community by locking vulnerable people into too-good-to-be-true predatory contracts. Most people stuck with the man they knew, but a few got fleeced. Dennis didn’t let it go unanswered. Violence was far from his M.O. but someone worked over The Stray with a pipe in the trunk of a car and told him to leave town. He did, but not before showing up at the diner and shooting Dennis three times.
The near-death experience was sobering for Dennis. Laying there, gasping and bleeding on the linoleum floor, like many he’d never really faced his own mortality. He’d unconsciously, implicitly assumed he’d go on the way he had forever. He couldn't stand the idea of everything he'd built crumbling. He’d give everything to prevent it. Once he got out of the hospital, he did.
It was a mad three months. Everyone assumed Dennis had lost it, running around with a cast on and cutting deals with the kinds of strange people he wouldn’t truck with ordinarily. He emptied out almost every account and favour he was owed, the diner was becoming a hub for something and those in the know were keeping their mouths shut. The occult underground leaned in curiously and the rumour was that the Sleepers (and this was pre-Whisper War) were starting to squint in his direction. Then the restaurant vanished.
It’s still there, kind of. There’s also a brick building containing a coworking office space on the lot where it used to be. However if you know the right people, Dennis’s people, you can petition to see him. To be led down a back hallway locked with too many deadbolts to a supply closet. In the back of it there is sometimes a door, it oscillates in and out of reality with a grainy filter effect that looks fake. If you know the right way to enter it, you can gain access to the diner. Dennis is still there and serving his constituents. He’ll know what you want before you get there and if you’ve made it this far it’s because he’s got it. It seems like he’s done all of this before.
Every day in the diner is the same day, forever, and usually all Dennis will ask of you is your loyalty and time (literally).
STATS
Personality: Laid back, magnanimous and sharply appraising. Dennis likes to make people feel comfortable, like a trusted friend. He’ll give you the shirt off his back but he expects loyalty in return. He knows he’s not always the smartest person in the room but he knows he can figure out how best to use them.
Rage: My house, my rules.
Noble: Sticking to his word.
Fear: One day this will all be over (Helplessness).
Obsession: To rule his pocket universe fairly and help set people up, forever.
Wound Threshold: 50 (currently sitting on 42, the bullet wounds Dennis received courtesy of The Stray won't heal any further in the diner's time loop. This helps his avatar connection by channelling the Fisher King).
Fixer 60%* (Substitutes for Status, Protects Isolation, Unique - Call in a favour.)
Avatar: True King 75% (Avatar, Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick.)
Shock Gauges
Notches
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Violence
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Unnatural
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Helplessness
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Isolation
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Self
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Hardened
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3
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5
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2
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4
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2
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Failed
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1
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1
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2
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0
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0
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