Down at the Shop *Now Open*

Down at the Shop
– an Anime Metro classic,
Now featured on RolePlay Gateway

The Plot:

Deep inside of a city that is falling to crime, the city council has decided to bring order to the law less neighborhoods overrun with crime. While residents in other neighborhoods may applaud and cheer at the proposed change, there is one from among the streets that does not.

His shelter is in the zone that will be ripped down, and rezoned for shopping centers. His home, an old house with an attached garage for car repair and an expanded kitchen, is known through the underworld as a place of refuge, a haven among the criminals and those who have no place left in the world.

Though this man’s home has not been long established, his ruthless and strong confrontation of criminal warlords has earned the respect of many, thus a formal agreement between these underworld lords to declare a no-man’s-land.

But with the rezoning, it seems that this haven will be lost and the city criminals will be without hope for redemption as they try and rebuild their lives.


This year’s location is: Detroit


You, the player:

Players are more then welcome at any time. This is a realistic RPG so please, fantasy players, I refer you over to that forum.

Gangsters, Mafia, thieves, odd balls, and yes, I will welcome vampires- but please note vampire-fans, please be very low key on the fangs- this is SUPPOSE to be a realistic after all. Some paranormal allowed.

Who to know:

Hughes: Hughes’s past is very murky. Thought to be a wandering mercenary, Hughes refuses to comment or tell much about himself.

Name: Hughes
Age: 27
Weight: 129
Height: 5'11
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Light Blue
Clothes: Jeans, loose shirt, brown belt.
vehicle: Motocycle

City Council: These are the bastards that are trying to shut down the halfway house Hughes runs in order to rezone the neighborhood for high rises and highway.

Link to the main story!
down-the-shop-open-t37063.html

Name: "Spook" Caiman
Age: 21
Weight: 145
Height: 5'10"
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Deep blue
Clothes: Jeans, NIN T-shirt, black zip hoodie
Vehicle: Someone else's

Spook Caiman got his name from association with many of the unexplained events of the underground. Although he is an average human, he is the go-to guy for paranormal knowledge.

Name: Richard 'PlayDough' Jannick
Age: 20
Weight: 150
Height: 6'2''
Hair: Normally shaved clean, but naturally it is a tightly curled chocolate brown
Eyes: Extremely bright green
Clothes: Normally quite ragged- wife beaters, ripped, dirty and bloodstained jeans, and a loose, ratted pullover hoodie
Vehicle: None. He used to own some very nice trucks, but it all got thrown away with his addictions.

Richard was once a well-known drug dealer throughout town, working under a gang boss ('The Slayers'). His street name was PlayDough for his ability to shape any situation to his desire with merely his words. He was living as a happy criminal, as he made good money, had a pretty girl he loved, and after a while, a pretty daughter he loved aswell. This was all before him and all the occupants of the house he owned fell into the world of heroine. He refuses to tell anyone what happened after that, but almost anyone who knew him knew both his girl and his baby were dead, all under the hands of heroine. He is often found at night waking up in tears, and is extremely mopey. He is also known to come back to this group home high as a kite, even if the few caring people in the grouphome he stayed in were trying to get him to quit. Richard tries, but it never ends up good on his end of things.

Here is my character, freshly created from the depths of this crime writer’s mind, and I will try to post sometime tomorrow in the in character thread. If anyone is interested in subplots, or trying to establish prior connections or backstories involving Janis, let me know, and I’ll be happy to oblige.

Name: Janis Kestelman
Age: 38
Weight: Average
Height: Average
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Light blue
Clothes: Is this really necessary? I'll have to sit here and actually think about it, and I can't do that right now. . .
Vehicle: Stolen car (stolen from an elderly relative who recently died and wouldn't report it)

Janis was raised in a Jewish home, but later became an atheist. She worked in an immigration nonprofit program, providing legal services pro bono to anyone who needed them, facing deportation by the ICE, or criminal charges unrelated to immigration status, or applications for Green Card or American citizenship, spending most of her time at the legal clinics, and earning a little money from a stipend granted her by a post doctorate research fellowship program where she was researching the various demographic patterns among recent immigrant populations in the Twin Cities arriving from countries without a history of significant emigration, or immigration to America specifically.

She studied sociology, earned her PhD in sociology, and then a special certification as an advocate and counselor before immigration courts only. She is not a lawyer, but can serve in the capacity of one in immigration court. Janis had been working for the legal clinic for six years when a series of unfortunate events occurred, revealing corruption in the Twin Cities’ branch of the ICE, and a number of refugees denied asylum despite their clear case for it, and Janis being the zealous, outspoken advocate that she is, pursued justice despite the fact that even more powerful and influential politicians and bureaucrats were privy to the corruption, or silently benefitting from it by being paid off to look the other way. They tried to silence her. When an ICE agent came to her doorstep with a loaded gun, Janis thought he was coming to kill her. She shot him and killed him, and it turned out that he had been coming with an update on one of her current cases.

Wanted for murder, Janis fled the Twin Cities, knowing full well the powerful lobbyists would do anything to see her gone for good, as she had been but an iota from permanently ending the corruption in the Twin Cities and their immigration officers and policies. She reappeared in Detroit, where, without money, and without the benefit of her stipend (she was immediately removed from the program after the federal indictment), she has found her way to Hugh’s place, where she keeps a low profile.

Before the incident and the high octane pressure of becoming an outsider muckraker, Janis had been outspoken, bold, fearless, and zealous in her pursuit of justice and equal opportunity for every person before the law. Something of an idealist, something in her cracked from the moment she first discovered the corruption, and after shooting Special Agent Mike Wayne, Janis has withdrawn into a more introspective, introverted personality, decidedly quieter and less certain than she once was.

This died quickly...shame...I really wanted to develope Richard's past more.