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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:42:57 GMT -5
EZIMAT NES ZAK
Aliases: The Dough Man, The Leather Man, The Meatskin Horror, The Red Hand
Affiliation: Mercenary, Jimmy
Species: Uh.
Birthplace: Um.
Birthdate: Uh...
Height: Aherm, uh...
Weight: Nope. I got nothing.
SUMMARY
The Kalav'Lees was mostly redworlders. Then there was this. This is something else. Something wrong. Nobody knows what he is. He doesn't. He probably couldn't even explain it, either - he's half feral and can hardly talk. Nobody's sure if he's even sentient. His name means "Flesh of the Dough" in Qashanish; he's some flaccid, gelatinous parody of a man, made out of some kind of red, squishy stuff like jellied blood. Gut-troubling as it is, this thing was one of the top mercs out in Cloneston. Nowadays, he's free - and people are terrified of just where he's going to turn up next.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:43:45 GMT -5
APPEARANCE
Where do you begin with something like this? Ezimat doesn't have a fixed height. He's always growing, up and out, across and inside. On one day, he might be five feet tall and chubby like a walrus. The next day, depending on what he's been eating, he'll be ten feet tall like some kind of fleshy noodle. Some days, he might be missing limbs. Others, he might have a few extra - maybe even fingers sprouting from his eye sockets. Sometimes, he might have eyes. Sometimes, they're in the right places. Sometimes, there's too many of them. It's like the meat was made into a man. There's no sense to it.
About the only thing consistent about the Dough Man's figure is the smooth "skin" he has - really, it's like that the whole way down. He's usually a glossy claret, but that never really stays the same, either. If he's been slapped lately, it'll be a bright, ruby red. Shoot him, he'll turn pink. If he's skinned his knee, he'll switch to crimson. It's always reds, reds, and more reds, occasionally a purple when he's feeling whimsical. He doesn't have blood. He doesn't have any kind of life juices. He's just meat. Jiggly, wiggly, stomach-upsetting meat.
Usually, the Dough Man is humanoid. Usually. On a good day, he's got two arms, two legs, and stands upright, with some kind of skeletal structure improvised on the spot. Crowning it off is a bouncing head that's something like a skull wrapped in angry jelly. Most days, the eye sockets are completely empty - fleshy pits devoid of any defining features. Most times, he doesn't have anything resemblant of a mouth. It's just flat, textureless skin, lying south of a bump that's trying to pass for a nose. It's not entirely clear how he eats. A pair of bulges stick out of the sides of his head that might be pretending to be ears. That's definitely not what they are. No one knows how this thing can see or hear.
It gets worse. Give him a hatchet and some time alone and he'll come back an arm short and a spleen extra. He's to transplant surgeons what a drive-thru window is to a gourmet restaurant. Somehow, in ways no one has ever explained - or has ever wanted to explain - Ezimat is a one-man organ factory. Doesn't matter much who or what you are, he'll be there for you. If you think you could use some fresh human eggs or a few Zaschian arms, Ezimat's got your back. Ask him for a new back, he'll give you his. Generosity is one thing. This is something else.
What's even worse is that he's close to unkillable. It's not just because he can regenerate arms, legs, and intestines on the fly. No, Ezimat is a wild animal when he's pressed. He's a bundle of energy that simply cannot stop twitching, fidgeting, or shaking. He's fast, flexible, coordinated, and strong enough to rip arms from their sockets. Push him hard enough, he'll rip his own out and use it as a club. Give him too much sugar - too much of anything, really - and he'll outrun sports cars on foot. If you've got any value in your own life, do not make this thing angry.
On most days, you can see Ezimat wearing something just a few sizes off in all the wrong places. Lately, it's been his favorite pick; a full suit of Cloneston riot armor, neck-to-toe protection with that fleshy skull poking out on top. Where and when he can, he'll slap a few extra knee pads and helmets over anything that might bulge out, or stretch just a little too long. Sometimes, he puts a helmet on his head. Most of the time, he keeps his "face" exposed - seems to understand psychological warfare just fine. All in all, he's a hulking set of gunmetal-and-black plating with a few agitated reds throbbing out. Even meat monsters look more coordinated than this.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:43:57 GMT -5
BEHAVIOR
This thing is insane. He knows it. He loves it. He embraces it every day of his life. At any given moment, you can find him sampling the taste of whatever he can find on the floors or walls. He'll latch onto people's boots just to run his blank face across the dirt they've tracked in. When he's not doing that, he's busy looking for the coldest, darkest place he can find so he can moan screams and meat noises for fun. He'll pound on the walls, beat on his chest - if someone could teach this thing how to play the drums, he'd be an overnight legend.
For better or worse, the Dough Man is a faithful companion. When you get down to the core of it, that's about all he really is. He'll follow orders to the letter, take everything as a divine commandment. He's a bit too eager for it all - tell him to rip out his heart, he'll hand it over right away. Tell him to rip out someone else's heart, he'll have it to you before sundown. Ask him to die for you and - bless his heart - he will try. He's never been able to get the whole "dying" part down, but he's always ready to give it another shot.
For something that's close to invulnerable, it's probably for the best that Ezimat can't aim. He can hold just about anything you give him, but he can't fight with it. He's terrible at anything that doesn't involve him breaking it with his fists. He never seems to realize he'd do better if he just tried that in the first place. Give him a gun and tell him to kill someone, he'll hit everything but the person in his sights. He'll have to run out of ammo before he tries something else. When he gets close, there's no finesse or skill. All he can do is kick, slap, rip, and tear. If it wasn't for how strong, fast, and terrifying this thing was, he'd be useless in a fight.
The Dough Man can talk, contrary to popular belief. He's just not very good at it. He doesn't have a mouth. He might have vocal chords in there somewhere, but they're not helping much. He speaks broken, muffled Qashanish and a few tiny slivers of English. Doesn't matter if you're human, redworlder, or an advanced linguistics AI, nobody can understand what he's saying half the time. He can understand both of those languages just fine. Not anything else, and not anything complex, but enough to function as an individual - more or less.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:44:20 GMT -5
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:49:49 GMT -5
RELATIONSHIPS- The Loonies know nothing about the Dough Man. The Dough Man knows nothing about the Loonies. Nobody tell either of them. Seriously.
- The Space Loonies know about Ezimat. They know his name, his history, his achievements, and his failures. It's not clear why - he's only ever met one of them, and not even when he was on the job. What's more concerning is that he knows about them - and he's muffled out a good chunk of knowledge on how they work.
- The Cult of Meat does not know about the Dough Man. The Dough Man does not know about the Cult of Meat. You'd think there'd be more to it, but there isn't. It's for the best.
- If Ezimat has any kind of concern over other species, he's not showing it. It's not even clear what he is. If that's why, nobody's gotten around to asking it.
- The people of Cloneston are doing their best to forget the Dough Man exists. It is not working. Every day someone sees him, the shock alone is enough to put it in the headlines. He's a legend in the south. He keeps people awake at night. Most days, he's doing something terrible to someone - sometimes, himself. What the Dough Man thinks is a mystery. It's not entirely clear if he can think.
- People outside Cloneston do not know of the Dough Man, but the wastelands have felt his fleshy touch. He is a hated face - or lack thereof - by the mutants on Cloneston's outskirts. He is a demon, a myth, a legend, something that keeps half-finished and irradiated clones afraid for their lives. He is the bump in the night. He is the voice on the wind. He wouldn't mind going back there, honestly.
- Beth wants this thing dead. You don't really need to ask why.
- Jimmy usually tries to skirt the subject of the Dough Man. It's not something comfortable. He doesn't have any history, any kind of relationship with it, or anything like that. The thing just creeps him out. He's hired it before - somehow. He's always sworn that the last time is really going to be the last time. The Dough Man has nothing to say on the matter. It's probably for the best.
- Ezimat is a preferred client for VANDAL. He's terrifying. Nobody has any idea what he is. When he comes running, people turn the opposite direction, even if they're not anywhere near him. Some days, VANDAL pays him in food just to get him to run around stark naked and scare people off. People know Ezimat's usually working for VANDAL these days - and the Dough Man's always happy to help. Maybe it paints a bullseye on VANDAL's operations, but it doesn't change the fact that nobody's ready to stare down that thing.
- Gregor Chuikov has wanted to catch Ezimat with a squad of flamethrowers for as long as he's known the thing has existed. He's a relic of the old, dead Fair Hand. Chuikov wants to send a message by clearing out what's left. It's never worked. He's still trying, but it's still not working. The Dough Man's been returning the gesture in kind. He's eaten some of Gregor's men just for trying. People are still trying to figure out how.
- Damsel Center...um. Damsel Center is...uh...let's not talk about this. Please.
- Raki'Sakazzah was the Dough Man's employer, superior, and the closest thing he had to a friend. The infamous Fishbowl kept Ezimat close as a bodyguard, personal doctor, and - a bit worryingly - an advisor. He was the one who gave the Dough Man his name and helped introduce him to the city above. Ezimat's not usually one to show emotion - usually has a hard time with the facial expressions part. When Raki comes up, it's easy to see he's still mourning the man.
- Ves'Narun shares a bit of an awkward relationship with Ezimat. On the one hand, she's scared to death of the thing. On the other, she's known him personally for years - even knows some of the Dough Man's legend in the wastes. She's fought alongside him. She's seen him save - or, at least, prolong - the lives of family and friends. In some sick way, the two are something like family. Just don't say that in front of Ves.
- Amin'Solah would be better off not knowing the Dough Man exists. She'll make that very clear if you ask her. Maybe she owes her life to its fleshy intervention, maybe it sees her as a friend, but she's not going anywhere near that thing. She's seen enough as it is.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:50:04 GMT -5
HISTORYLegend is all the Dough Man's early life is. Some say he was an experimental super-clone that went mad as soon as he stepped out of his pod. Some say he was a Space Looney experiment into domesticating meat monsters. Others say he's just a freaky mutant who wandered in out of the wastes. Ezimat's never said anything. It's not even entirely clear if he knows his own past - most people are on the fence about him being sentient. What the Dough Man is, on the other hand, is something no one needs to ask about. No one really wants to, either. CHAPTERS- 1. The Leather Man- 2. Make Like a Tree- 3. The Flesh of the Dough- 4. The Meatskin Horror- 5. Down to Erf- 6. The Red Hand- 7. The Dough Man
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:30:32 GMT -5
THE LEATHER MAN
What's roughly held as a fact is that the Dough Man is at least 67 years old. He's kept a myth and a following in the wastelands ever since he first arrived on the scene. Back in 1244, a storm was brewing. Two major warbands were squaring off with eachother over a patch of dead mining facilities. Both were mutants just as ugly and twice as insane as Ezimat on a bad hair day. The bigger of the two was the Kunggler Clan, a mixed mob of raiders, wasters, and genuine wasteland mutants. They had the numbers, but they didn't have the skill. Their mirror image was Prezcit Zee, a gang of half-finished clones with twice as much firepower and tactics.
It might've been the stage for a big battle in the wastes. Both had camped out on opposite sides of the maintenance lines connecting the mines. They were sharpening their sticks, loading their guns, and praying to their sludge-faced gods when something happened. People started dying. Kunggler got hit first, but it wasn't Prezcit Zee doing the work. It was something sliding in from the wastes, something fast, quiet, and deadly. By the time Zee came around to check on the shooting and screaming, half the clan was dead. They plowed into what they thought was an easy kill. Instead, they found someone the wastes wouldn't ever forget; the Leather Man.
The story goes that the Leather Man fed both their own intestines. He swept in, killed anyone stupid enough to fight back, and took the mines for himself. He stalked the place for years, jumping clones, drones, mutants, and raiders. He kept stockpiles of bones and bodies to scare off visitors. Some time around 1250 or 1260, a mutant horde hit the place to try to clear him out. Legend has it that they caught him, skinned him alive, and tried to put him on display as a trophy. Instead, the Leather Man broke loose and killed them all, grunts to chiefs. He stitched together their skin, tanned it, and wore it as a suit. That's how he earned his name, according to myth. Ezimat's not said anything.
The Leather Man roughed up the wastelands for more than half a century. He was a celebrity to the people who knew not to get in his way. Every so often, a raider gang would turn up dead and skinless. On occasion, a mutant chief or a bandit king was found dead in their beds with their face eaten off. A few people were even bold enough to say he was fighting the good fight for peace in the wastes. Most were too scared to think of him; a skinless horror killing people in the night with his bare hands.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:31:01 GMT -5
MAKE LIKE A TREE
So far as anyone knows, the Leather Man's story didn't get much more interesting until the next century. There was talk in the wastes that he'd gone to the city and pummelled real, full-time clones, but everything about him was just myth and legend. It took until he ran into Amin'Solah and the Fair Hand for things to take a real turn. In 1306, the Kalav'Lees was deep in an underground cloning facility, looking for an AI core. They were on a contract for Jimmy to take out one of his competitors. All things considered, it was supposed to be an easy job. Drones, clones, and sentry guns. Nothing a team of redworlder hackers couldn't handle.
They didn't find drones, clones, or sentry guns. Not many, anyways. Instead, they ran into a horde of horrors streaming out of the cloning facility. The AI was trying its best to keep contained. When the Fair Hand showed up, they let it loose; a tide of screaming plant monsters with stringy muscles that made the Dough Man look tame. The redworlders bled hard when they found out the hard way - four dead in an ambush, and Amin'Solah running straight to her death in the lab. Most pronounced her dead on the spot. Some even said they saw a body.
Instead, she ran straight into the fleshy arms of the Leather Man. Nobody knows what he was doing there. People have asked, but Ezimat's never answered - not intelligibly, anyways. The same goes for what happened after. Ezimat just can't get the words to come out right. Amin's blocked it out of her memory. Whatever happened in there, the two survived together. The Leather Man pummelled the pint-sized monsters into paste while Amin hit the AI. Nobody on the other side of the facility could believe it when the AI shut down. People were speechless when Amin came in behind them - with something noodly and swollen covering her exit.
Anyone else running the show might've killed Ezimat on the spot - or tried to, at least. Instead, it was Raki'Sakazzah leading the survivors, leader of the Fair Hand and the Fishbowl himself. More importantly, he was Amin's cousin and employer. The Leather Man had done right by his family, so he had to do right by him. Riding up to meet the city at the Fair Hand's side was the scourge of the wastes, ripping freaks, clones, and thugs apart with his bare hands. Some weren't even trying to kill him.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:31:19 GMT -5
THE FLESH OF THE DOUGH
Raki gave the Leather Man the first name he'd ever taken up voluntarily. He arrived in Cloneston as Ezimat nes Zak, Qashanish for "Flesh of the Dough". He went straight to work with the Fair Hand. He tried a few times to buddy up with Amin for his debut jobs. Much to nobody's surprise, she left the room whenever she saw Ezimat walk in. Instead, he ran security for a few solo contracts the Fishbowl himself handled. The Leather Man might not have been a household name up in Cloneston, but that didn't change the kind of results Ezimat brought in. Raki took him on as a personal bodyguard only a month into his career. Not once did he ever argue or ask for a new position. He was happy there.
His name got out in a hurry. It only took a week before the city started calling him "the Dough Man" instead of "that thing". He earned a reputation so fast that more people knew about Ezimat in just a few months than the Leather Man had earned in 62 years. He didn't even ask for pay, either - he was just happy to have something to eat. Being up there, with the real clones and the radiation-free nightlife, it was something he couldn't get enough of. Whenever he wasn't on the clock, he was out exploring the city, riding trams with terrified commuters all over.
It didn't take long for his special talents to surface. Instinct kicked in during a few shootouts with Fair Hand members, only about half a year into his service. When the action died down, he went to work demonstrating his generous side. He kicked medics off wounded, ripped pieces off himself, and mashed them into open wounds. All the while, everyone - bystanders included - screamed at him in terror. The only reason he wasn't executed on the spot was because, somehow, in some horrible way, it worked. He might not have been a doctor, he might not have had redworlder genes, but something about the whole thing just worked.
Squishy pieces of the Dough Man formed into skin grafts and fresh arteries. People got back up as if they'd never been shot. Not many were all that happy about it, but they were alive to complain. That was enough for the Fishbowl. It wasn't safe or practical for battlefield surgery; half the people who got back up picked up nasty tumors and autoimmune problems after. In a hospital, on the other hand, with qualified doctors and extensive recovery times, it could work. So, Raki did what came natural. He took a chainsaw to the Dough Man every weekend, had him shape the meat into something they could sell, and started working the black market organ trade. Ezimat didn't mind. He was insane from the start.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:31:53 GMT -5
THE MEATSKIN HORROR
Around 1308, the Dough Man picked up another nickname. Jimmy knew about him. Most days, he was trying to pretend Ezimat was fiction. Others, he loved the fact that something that nutty could exist. The insanity surrounding the Dough Man hit its peak when a movie hit screens across the city on May 8th. It was titled "The Meatskin Horror" and revolved around a half-meat-monster, half-vigilante fighting for redemption in the sewers. There was just one little thing about the movie; by mistake or by design, the main character looked exactly like the Dough Man.
When it first opened, the movie was destined to flop. People were horrified at what they saw on the screen. Its target audience, as it turned out, had a front-row seat to the Dough Man's antics across the city. Walk-outs were around half the people who bought tickets. Word-of-mouth killed ratings. Jimmy wasn't having any of that. It was one of his off days, supposedly after a city-wide bender left his neural network in shock, but he was determined. He went to work making sure Ezimat was going to have his time in the spotlight.
Jimmies swarmed theaters. Digital copies of the film flew off the virtual shelves. For a week straight, every party Jimmy hosted had The Meatskin Horror playing up on the big screen. The city was absolutely confused - horrified again, even. Here was Jimmy, one of their favorite senators, promoting some horrible monster whose daily life was all about ripping arms off of people. Sometimes, himself. Slowly, but surely, people followed Jimmy's example to see what was up.
The Meatskin Horror didn't win any awards, but, as soon as people gave it a shot, it earned its profits. It turned out that, if you didn't think of him as the Dough Man, the protagonist wasn't such a bad guy after all. The company behind the film wiped the sweat off, noted the brush with bankruptcy, and quietly thanked Jimmy. Jimmy woke up from his hangover screaming in terror. He'd just given Ezimat's public image a makeover and his personal blessing. He'd even given him a new nickname with the title of the movie.
For the Fair Hand, it was something awkward. Publicity wasn't their style. They were hackers, hitmen, and heisters. Subtlety was what they were about. Brands were for people like Vincent Le DuBuon and Gregor Chuikov. Even then, it got people talking in a good way. The movie hit the Drassa Enclave and got redworlders all across the city stirred up. Their headline mercenary crew had made it to film. They were winning it big. What the Meatskin Horror himself thought, nobody knows. It's still not clear if he can think.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:32:07 GMT -5
DOWN TO ERF
Three years after Ezimat joined the crew, the Fair Hand found its way into an early grave. Chuikov, VANDAL, clones, and freelancers hit the Raffemaster Industrial Plate, home of the Kalav'Lees. Raki, Ezimat, and all the others were there on a big break from a heisting spree on the east side of town. The whole Hand was there - and completely surrounded. The Dough Man did as he was told. He stayed with Sakazzah and held down the fort. Granted, he was a fidgety mess with all the shooting he wasn't allowed to chase after, but Ezimat was always faithful.
When the compound was breached, Raki let him off his chain. The Dough Man ran back into the halls, screaming and flailing. Six times, Chuikov mercenaries said they'd finally cooked him for good. Six times, the same shooters were screaming for help when the Dough Man got back up and caved in their skulls. Whenever Ezimat wasn't beating clones and goons senseless, he was dragging the wounded back to safe zones and waiting medics. He was everything he'd been to the city and more in the plate's underbelly. He was something out of a nightmare; a flesh monster that never seemed to die, tearing out from the darkness to drag a few more people off to Hell.
Crazy as he was, Ezimat couldn't save the Fair Hand by himself. Each time he ran out, he had to stop sooner and sooner as Chuikov's men drew the net closed. Eventually, he was trapped in the safehouse's command center with Raki and a few hackers. No one knows for sure what happened, but Chuikov's mercenaries came back with combat footage showing the brawl. It was just what Gregor had always wanted; the Dough Man tumbling out a window to the city below, on fire and gurgling screams.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:32:31 GMT -5
THE RED HAND
No one's ever had a reason to trust Chuikov's word on anything. Unless it's live, you can rest your bets on it being fiction. Whatever happened in there, Ezimat disappeared for good - as far as people thought. There was just something amiss about what was going down in the wastes. People down there always kept the folklore tradition alive. Myths were the bread-and-butter of campfire stories out in the wild territories - not much different from the rest of the planet, really. One of them turned up right after the Fair Hand died out; the legend of the Red Hand.
Ezimat's past is a big blur after the Kalav'Lees broke up. Just like the Leather Man before him, the Red Hand was something else. He rampaged through the bottom of the city, killing clones, drones, mutants, and hackers all over. He wasn't just fighting the half-finished rejects out in the badlands anymore. The legend was even wilder than that. He was wrenching open the hatches on clone tanks, punching his way into AI cores, and hijacking armored vans just to ram them into landed air patrols. Even people above heard the stories. Everyone wanted to think it was someone else. Everyone was praying it was someone else.
1310 hit. Ves'Narun nes'ara Drassa was one of four survivors of the Fair Hand. She was one of Raki's cousins and helped pull Amin'Solah out of the fire when the RIP Smokeout hit. To top it off, she was a professional waster on top of her mercenary skills - even knew about the Leather Man before she met the monster himself. She'd been taking whatever jobs she could get to keep her out of sight and out of mind. As luck had it, most of them were reconnaissance missions on AI cores, deep down at the bottom of the city.
Down there, surrounded by mutants, monsters, and freaks of all walks, she met something that didn't immediately go for her kidneys. Something red. Something muscly. Something that actually waved and said "hello" - or tried to, anyways. Standard practice was to kill it on the spot. Against all better judgement - and much to the chagrin of everyone above - she didn't. She'd heard the legend. She'd put the pieces together. Ves knew both of the names this thing went by. She wanted to know what happened.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:32:36 GMT -5
THE DOUGH MAN
Ves never did figure out what happened. Ezimat couldn't really explain it. He couldn't really explain anything, but this one stung twice as hard. Here was the Meatskin Horror, alive, well, and still doing what he did best. Meanwhile, Raki'Sakazzah was dead and his grave was a trophy locker in one of Chuikov's vaults. Ezimat tried to apologize - or, at least, so people were inclined to believe. It didn't much change the fact that Ves didn't want anything to do with him. She let him loose on Cloneston and tried her best to move on. The Dough Man obliged and returned to terrorizing the city.
His reception was not pleasant. Chuikov caught on right away. He wasn't happy. He wanted to kill that thing - again - and lock it somewhere it couldn't get back up. The Dough Man did not oblige. Instead, he found protection from an unlikely patron. Butting in was VANDAL, one of the same provocateurs behind the Red Bonfire. The AI wasn't all that close to Chuikov - that the two were on the same side during the Bonfire was just happenstance. The Dough Man, on the other hand, was a useful asset. He was someone talented. He was someone who could be plied and manipulated. Perhaps a bit too literally, but still.
Jimmy joined in when he heard Gregor was part of it. He wanted a shot at slugging the Red Menace right where it'd hurt; his pride. That's where Ezimat's history leaves off and the present day picks up. He's been bouncing between VANDAL and Jimmy - who's regretted hiring the thing every single time. He's been dodging S&C hit squads at every turn. Chuikov's been fuming for months. He's been taking his paychecks in food and drugs. He's never once gone a week without a contract. He's loving every second of it.
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