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Sep-5-2008 16:23

Hello fellow sleuthers! It seems to have been a while since we’ve had a contest. We here at Blue Pagoda have come up with a little one for those who have a few minutes to spare between Sleuthing, real life, and Villain Hunting.

THE PREMISE:
We would like you to choose ONE of the four candidates and write their bio for us. Their names or faces are known throughout Sleuthville, but we know so little about them. So, delve into their past and tell us what you think happened to bring them to where they are today in Sleuthville. Your choices are: Big Lucy, Shady, Larry the Toe, and the Magnifying Glass Lady who introduces the Faction twist.

THE RULES:
1. Spelling and Grammar DO count.
2. The limit is 3000 characters, which is the Bio limit for every detective. (You can see if it fits on your detective bio before you post your entry here.)
3. It must be in the time frame of Sleuth Noir, around 1920.
4. One entry per detective, writing their own entry. Proofreaders are fine. Collaborators are not.
5. Open to subbed and unsubbed

THE PRIZES:
1. First Place -" a special prize" by the Sleuth Admin or $50,000 sleuth dollars
OR
6 month subscription to unsubscribed player
2. Second Place - $25,000 sleuth dollars
OR
3 month gift subscription to unsubscribed player
3. Third Place - $10,000 sleuth dollars
OR
1 month gift subscription to unsubscriped player

DEADLINE:
October 9, 2008 at 23:99 sleuth server time.

THE JUDGES:
Will be announced after their decisions have been made. Volunteers are welcome. Please PM Lady Jas if you are interested in judging!

Oct-7-2008 12:40

ctd......
At home, she buried her terrible grief in her work for MI9, where she was employed as a clerk for the Postal Censorship service. Her bad luck did not end there as, on her daily walk from the office in 1917, she heard the hum of overhead planes. As fascinated people gathered in the street to watch, there was no fear, no hysteria. Until a shrill whistling grew in volume and the sinking realisation hit - their lethal cargo had been unloaded. A slow-motion sequence seemed to flick past her eyes, of people scattering in panic, a deafening bang and a sudden loss of consciousness.
She awoke some short period later in a hospital bed, her head tightly bound. The shrapnel had been successfully removed but her right eye could not be saved. She still awakes some nights, drenched with sweat, the whistle of the bomb and the screams of terror ringing in her ears.
She never remarried. She never met anyone who could hold a candle to him. After the war, she continued to work. For whom and doing what is a matter of some mystery, although it seems to take her on travels far and wide.
Now, I can tell you just three things for certain. One �" she is a stunningly beautiful lady. Two - she knows things, a LOT of things. Three - the sight in her remaining eye is failing and her intriguing choice of remedy has led folk to call her ‘Hand-Glass Hazel.’

Oct-7-2008 12:46

Darn, NOW I notice that grammatical slip of the fingers third line from the end!

Oct-7-2008 15:54

Great entries so far....looking forward to the rest of the participants entries ;)

Oct-8-2008 13:18

Me too!

Oct-8-2008 22:52

It'd be great to see some more entries.

Oct-9-2008 03:11

Here we go with an entry for Big Lucy:

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I’ve ‘eard it was some English guy called Shakespeare who came up with the expression, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em”. I’ve no idea who he was referring to, but, let’s face it, they could ‘ave been written for me.

Born great? No doubt about that. Both my parents were long-established in the Cabaret, but it was my aunt - Ma’s sister - who had the gift of foresight. The day after my birth, she had a vision - who knows where it came from - that one day I would ‘old the destiny of many in the palm of my ‘and. Did it come true? Well, just ask those thousands of sleuths who cough up their ‘ard-earned cash to my little go-between Larry, all for the privilege of paying me a visit. Why else would they pay if they didn’t think I could aid them on their journey?

Achieve greatness? Do you need to ask? The Cabaret may have been around for years, but it was I who turned it into what it is today. I’ve always ‘ad an ‘ead for business - I ran my own stall at the age of 8, owned it by age 10, and had taken over ‘alf a dozen by age 16. When Boots McLain, the previous owner, met ‘is untimely end when ‘e was ‘it by one of the ‘orses on the ol’ carousel, the rest of the Cabaret looked to me for guidance. It was only natural - as the richest, most successful, and, obviously, the most charismatic member of the Cabaret - who else could it be?

As for greatness being thrust upon me - well, I guess it did kind of seek me out. But I played my part in finding it and building upon it. It’s one thing to take over the leadership of a two-bit outfit; it’s quite another to turn it into what it is today - the greatest, most talked about Cabaret in - and let there be no false modesty here - yes, in the world. We’re never short of entertainers - everyone wants to be associated with Big Lucy.

Oct-9-2008 03:12

Big Lucy continued...

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People ask me why they need to go through “the Toe” to find us. The answer’s simple - if everyone knew where we were, we’d collapse under the weight of the demand! People would literally be shoulder-to-shoulder as they fought to enjoy all we provide. So we limit numbers through the use of Larry - and even then we ‘ave an overwhelming amount of business. Those who are determined to find us - and believe me, there are plenty - ‘ave no problem doing so.

So that’s my little story. Time’s a-coming when I’ll be taking stock, thinking of ‘ow to expand the Cabaret. Maybe it’s time to take things to the next level - branch out overseas, perhaps. “Big Lucy’s Cabaret - London” - ‘as kind of a nice ring to it…

Oct-9-2008 08:33

This is my bio for Shady:

Growin’ up, I never had any friends. I was always the ugly boy with the scar down his face. I was a freak o’ nature. But I would never tell anyone how I got that scar.

Mommy always ignored me when I was little. She’d get drunk and start throwin’ stuff around. I would just cower in the corner until she either sobered up or fell asleep. And I would cry. Daddy was never around. He was always disappearin’ in the middle of the night to go see one of his “business associates.” That made mommy sad, which was why she got drunk in the first place. When daddy was around, he never told me that he loved me, not once. For the first ten years of my life I felt like an unwanted child.

Once when mommy got drunk she threw a china dish at me. It hit me on the face and left a huge scar from my left eye all the way down to the corner o’ my mouth. I didn’t cry then. I cried when I went to school the next day and all the kids laughed at me and called me a freak. They would call me Frankenstein, Scarboy, and King of Uglyworld. I wasn’t very pretty to begin with.

When I was twelve I left home. Mommy didn’t know I left and daddy didn’t care. I wandered the streets, ate from trash cans and slept in the alleyway behind the bar. I stole from stores and broke into the city’s computer mainframe to erase my file from the records. Charlie Kurtz NEVER existed. That was when I found out that I could do something else on that computer. It seemed that the computer had all of the city’s information, including the records of all the detectives in Sleuthville. Some of them had a few false accusations. I realized how I could support myself.

Oct-9-2008 08:35

Shady's bio cont'd (2431 characters total)

I took to wearing a black overcoat and a hat, always. I would sit in the back of the bar, in the shadows, so no one could see my hideousness, my shame. That’s how I got the nickname Shady. Soon word of my trade spread throughout the Sleuth community, and detectives started showin’ up. I charged them outrageous prices. But they paid, because it was me or nothin’. And I been keepin’ myself goin’ now for what has to be over twenty five years. I never saw daddy again, and I found out that mommy had died of liver cancer, and a broken heart. Despite my horrible childhood, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for that poor lady. I tried to fill the void of a loveless, friendless childhood with money. It didn’t work. Every night I go home to my one room apartment above the bar, and I cry myself to sleep.

Oct-9-2008 14:47


Blanche's death was the hardest thing to hit Marie-Charlotte De Tremoille since the War.

The beautiful young woman had been mysteriously murdered in connection with the disappearance of a bejewelled Tiara which she aided in crafting. It was said that one of six operative secret factions was behind her death.

Having migrated from Artois, France after their family and province suffered enormous damage in the Great War, Marie-Charlotte and her sister Blanche never left one another's side.

Though both young women exhibited a meticulously calm exterior, they never fully recovered from having lost everything in the War.

Blanche, the wittier sister, immediately found work in New York with one of the leading jewellers in town, and was later to be involved with many dubious characters and affairs in the big city.

A jeweller herself, Marie-Charlotte did not trust her skills or the jewellery she worked with. Her own clarity of vision when working with jewellery was blurred -even when working with a loupe- whenever she thought of the harm being inflicted upon people to obtain such bejewelled items. As a result, she was never able to trust her bare sight.

The night Blanche was strangled to death in her bedroom was the night Marie-Charlotte was determined to find out who killed her sister. A contact told her that one of six secret factions was behind Blanche's death.

Not knowing whether or not she had the nerve to eventually avenge her sister's death, Marie-Charlotte set out following any and all rumours, news and conflicts to do with secret factions and societies.

Since then, she always held a magnifying glass to her left eye, and was known to be as mistrustful of the world as she was with the jewellery she worked with.