"I could tell the Dame was trouble from the moment I put my eyes on her."
"I've always been a meat and potatoes kind of fella, but lately I've been straying from the meat and leaning toward the potatoes, if you get me."
- From the personal journals of F.C. Julian, Private Eye
Tall, with dark hair worn in an antiquated style, Julian has a rough, care worn face and haunting eyes. Much given to thought and consideration, FC Julian is quite a bit more intelligent than the average mug on the street might give him credit for. Having spent the last four years in Shanghai as a Private Investigator, Julian is well acquainted with the ins and outs of live in the International Settlement, and has become an accepted regular among the life-long residents.
Originally born an American citizen somewhere in Turkey to a pair of US government employees, Julian eventually volunteered to serve with the British Army during the First World War. He served extensively in the Middle East, and later, in Russia during the international relief effort. He has spent the last few years as a private investigator with an unusual nose for trouble and the abnormal.
Highly educated in the classics during his youth, Julian has the command of several languages and information your average private investigator hasn't even hard of. He speaks, reads, and writes Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and now, Chinese, quite fluently. For some reason, Julian never learned Russian, and refuses to speak Persian on principal, having had "a very unpleasant experience" with certain Persian rebels during his time in the Middle East.
But most of all, FC Julian is a skilled private investigator on balance of that notorious "nose for trouble." Frankly, calling it "a nose for trouble" is actually putting it lightly. As FC Julian himself puts it,
"It's a bit like folks who live near the traintracks and those who don't. You live near enough to the train, and eventually the sound fades into the background, it doesn't bother you. But if you're a guest at that same home, the sound of the train is blatant, jarring. Most of the world lives next to the train. I'm the poor bastard who's trying to get a decent night's sleep."
Julian has a healty business in a city that sees its fair share of mundane matters requiring a skilled private detective, and more than its fair share of matters that might be considered "less than mundane." This has netted him a number of contacts in all levels of Shanghai society. Nevertheless, FC Julian constantly feels alone in a world that he f eels, somehow, just isn't his own. It isn't Shanghai - it's a fine enough city, and it isn't the people he works with on a day to day basis. Deep inside himself, Julian knows that he isn't native Chinese, he isn't from the Settlement, and he can't even qualifty as having been born on American soil. He is literally a man without a country. Sometimes, late at night, he has strange dreams - memories of battles and far off places that should be impossible. Sometimes, late at night, those dreams cause him to question his parents, his life, his very place in the world where he now finds himself.
FC Julian is only now beginning to touch on the terrible purpose he has been given... Perhaps, of all the inhabitants of Shanghai, only a handful of people know the real truth about FC Julian. And they aren't talking...
FC Julian will be released with the new wave of Shanghai, 1930 characters early next year. The wave will also include Colonel Washiji Toro, Kawashima Yoshiko, and The Great Adamski.
Some photos for those interested. (And a challenge for those who like a mystery!)
SO here's your challenge. Who do you think FC Julian is? What's his big secret? I'm very interested to see if anybody's on my odd wavelength.
I'll make it interesting. First three folks to get it right, or at least close enough to right that I'm satisfied, will get the first three castings of FC Julian, when he arrives hot out of the mold some time in January/February.
-Doc
-- Edited by Doc Twilight on Saturday 19th of December 2009 03:55:23 AM
-- Edited by Doc Twilight on Saturday 19th of December 2009 03:56:12 AM
... sounds like someone having travelled and experienced a lot, being well educated and possesing a huge amount of knowledge but having his memory partially replaced with false reminiscense. and it seems that good ol' Earth isn't his homeworld... Beside that, he's off to save the world... Who might that be?
I believe I've said this before on LAF some time ago, but to me he reminds me of nothing less than Constantine (the version from the comic, not the movie). So that would make him a sort of demonhunting, occult investigator.
Sounds reasonable. I didn't know anything else about Constantine except the movie, but it fits... My guesses would have been either a very early incarnation of The Doctor or Lawrence of Arabia on a secret mission...
-- Edited by Hauptgefreiter on Friday 25th of December 2009 05:07:59 AM
