Bowie

Bowie (Proposed NPC/party member)
"19th of June, 1988. As the missiles hit Northern Europe, David Bowie performs to a concert of thousands in Stockholm. The city is struck by the outer wave of impact of the bomb that lands on the Agbar military facility. Much of the population is killed by falling masonry, collapsing buildings - and more are wiped out more slowly by the radiation poisoning. But David Bowie's body is never found." "Nine years later, a woman who passed out drunk in the ice-fields to the north of the city reported being picked up and carried to safety by a man in a strange costume to referred to himself as 'The Thin White Duke'. Another two years after that, a gang of tribals who'd been preying on a local village were found massacred in their shack. The word 'ZIGGY' was written on the wall in blood."  "David Bowie is still out there, man. And he's kickin' ass." Conspiracy Theorist

Location
At some point in his wanderings, the PC can encounter a small collective of heavily-armed, aging nerds, trying to get an old power station going so they can start up their very small-scale, very primitive internet system. They also have a passion for conspiracy theories, arguing that the nuclear holocaust only occurred because the governments of the world had far, far more devastating atomic weapons than they ever let on, and that scientists to the north have figured out how to turn back the worsening climate. One of them, mocked by his fellows, believes that David Bowie is still alive and in Scandanavia, doing good as a kind of gun-toting vigilante. The player can, in a location far away, contact 'Bowie' through a cryptic message - or, if the player is particularly virtuous or particularly villainous, 'Bowie' will come to them. In the former case, he may join them - in the latter, he may attempt to kill them.

Character
(You see before you an emaciated man. His torn, twisted face is partly coated by strange white make-up featuring a purple lightning-bolt. He is ferally dressed in furs, with animal tails and even what seems horribly like human hair hanging from his belt. At his hip he carries a hefty knife.) 'Bowie' was one of those in attendance, barely older than an adolescent, at the Stockholm stadium when the missiles struck. Horribly disfigured by the blast, he spent years in the wild, shunned by communities. Finally, painting his face with the colours of his hero, he elected to hunt down wrongdoers across Scandanavia. One can only be, he argues, through doing. One only finds meaning in personal activity - in his case, by ridding the world of murderers and thieves, one by one. Years of vigilantism have made Bowie understandably grim and humourless about his peculiar occupation. He doesn't care that the world is coming to an end - so long as there are criminals alive, he can be a hero for just one more day...and take another scalp for his collection. Sometimes, quietly, he will speak of his father, who attended the concert along with him - and his life before the apocalypse. A life, he claims, without purpose. But he seems to remember it with fondness, all the same. ''"The music shut off. And someone came running onstage to whisper in His ear. He turned to us, his crowd, his people, and said in English, "There's missiles falling all over Europe and apparently we don't have long. Many of you may want to flee. But if someone hands me a joint, I'd quite like to play Major Tom with all of you." Maybe a hundred left. He hopped down off the stage and began to sing." "Round about the second verse, we heard a whistling sound. We kept singing along to Major Tom. Dad lifted me onto his shoulders. And just as the third verse began, the impact struck the side of the stadium. After that, it's all...it was strange. Surreal. Bodies bouncing off into the air." "I crawled across to Him. Part of the gantry had collapsed onto His legs and His make-up was torn. His face was slipping away but you could still see his eyes and his mouth. I knew my face was the same...I could feel my face creeping down my cheeks." "He said, 'Will I be remembered?'. And I said, 'By whom?'"'' Bowie

Aims
A more colourful, funnier character concept - but a character who is rooted in realistic possibility, not a one-note caricature - and a 'funny' character with a darker, bleaker side. This is a lonely wanderer who scalps those he sees as being 'wrongdoers' - the fact that he paints his face in David Bowie's style doesn't make that any less true.