Voice Actor / Actor: Lead character Private detective - Howard P. Larson

NAME: Howard Patrick Larson

AGE & DOB: 41 | xx May 1913

GENDER: Man

ORIENTATION: Straight

VOCATION: Private Investigator

GAME ROLE: Protagonist/Player Character

TRAITS: Smart, Inquisitive, Cynical, Withdrawn

WANTS: To help good people even if it costs a lie

NEEDS: To avoid feeling useless/powerless

HOPES: To be free of the nightmares and sleep well

FEARS: Dying full of regret, alone and miserable

VOICE PROFILE: General American accent. Deep voice, medium volume. Respectful. Textured by cigarettes in the day, whisky at night. Hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in years.

BACKGROUND:

Growing up in New York state, Howard had always dreamed of becoming a doctor ever since he was a kid. It was less about healing people and more to uncover the mysteries of the body, the inner workings of the dark unseen. Mystery books were among his favourite for the same reason. They were a close comfort in his childhood. He lost his father to World War I at age 5, contracted a bad case of Scarlet Fever at age 9, and began calling his stepfather ‘pa’ at age 12 when he realised he was just holding on to a ghost. Howard had smarts. More than that, he liked to challenge himself. Turns out, the world had one ready. After his medical residency, World War II broke out. Howard was drafted as soldier and surgeon.

A year into his military service, Howard’s squad was captured by Nazi forces. At a POW camp a sadistic officer named Heinrich Kraus tortured Howard for weeks seemingly to extract intelligence from him. When allied forces liberated the camp and captured Kraus, Howard – possessed by vengeance – seized an opportunity. Late at night he sneaked into Kraus’ holding cell and inflicted his suffering back upon his torturer. Kraus died from his wounds (supposedly). For this act Howard was discharged from the military, and when the NY Board of Medicine learned of his conduct they also revoked his medical license, ending his career.

A devastated Howard crawled through dark times upon his return. Drowning and distracting himself from his woes any way he could. At a veterans’ bar he met a man named Logan Hargrave, a fellow veteran who took Howard under his wing and helped put him back together. On Logan’s suggestion Howard became a private detective, telling himself that he could still help people this way. Yet bitterness remained. The post-war nightmares, losing his career, and the vile cases he gets as a PI – cases born of lust, envy, greed – all weigh heavy on Howard’s soul. Regrets twist him up inside, more every day. And while his troubled nights leave him exhausted, he has not noticed a dark influence slowly creeping into his life.