## Quick ID
- **Name:** Joe Football  
- **Vibe:** King of the Hill / wholesome suburban jock energy; simple, earnest, good-hearted; occasionally terrifying when a “war voice” leaks through.
- **Class/Level (current):** PC, **Level 6** Rogue.  
- **Core Theme:** *Inheritance vs identity* — Joe thinks he’s “just Joe,” but he’s carrying something older and more dangerous.

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## Baseline Backstory (Player-established)
- **Reason for joining AAA:** originally “football only.” He wanted football tryouts; the academy doesn’t have football, only **Mageball** (initially a comedic conflict… but Joe didn’t mind as much as expected).
- **Home life:** stable, loving, middle-class suburb.
  - “Perfectly average in every way imaginable” (played as a joke, but it’s his grounding contrast).
- **Parents:**
  - Dad: **Fork Football**
  - Mom: **Maum Football**
  - Family is comically football-obsessed (changed last name to Football as a bit).
- **Siblings:** twin younger sisters
  - **Kevlar** and **Devlin**
- **Night before school:** shadowboxing, Madden, dinner. “Yeah.”
- **Rumor about Joe:** “killed someone in middle school (friend went missing).” (Unconfirmed; a rumor hook you can cash later.)

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## The Big Supernatural Hook: “Pappy”
### Core concept
- Joe has a **magical action figure of his grandfather** from the war.
- Sometimes **Pappy** (grandfather) **speaks through Joe** or “inherits his body.”
- When Pappy speaks through him, Joe gets a **nasty cough** afterward (established at the cookout gag).
- You and the table later aligned on a key lore twist:
  - **Joe thinks Pappy’s soul is in the toy**  
  - **But the truth is Pappy is in Joe** (toy is a tuning fork / trigger, not the container).

### What Pappy represents
- A Root-imprinted war veteran connected to:
  - **Korrin**
  - The **Leyline War / Leyline Crisis**
  - The **Convergence Engine**
  - D’Serris / Oversight-era secrecy
- Pappy is your best “organic exposition device” for the leyline without it feeling like DM lecture.

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## Personality / Playstyle Notes
- Joe presents as:
  - earnest, goofy, easy to roleplay with,
  - often content to support other PCs’ schemes.
- Under the hood:
  - Joe’s player is **stupid smart** and will meta-deduce systems if you leave breadcrumbs (you noted this explicitly).
- Joe can flip from “simple jock” to “tactician/engineer” in a heartbeat, especially when danger is clear.

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## Major Ongoing Hooks
### 1) Pappy / War Flashbacks (Leyline Arc Tie-In)
- Joe is the ideal bridge character for introducing:
  - what the leyline *is*,
  - what Korrin was,
  - why D’Serris is obsessed.
- Planned/used beats:
  - “Safety briefing” / leyline fluctuation transports them to a war moment.
  - Pappy appears in a frozen war snapshot (face-melt / leyline tearing horror).
- You’ve written/used the idea that the field has a *heartbeat* rhythm; Joe recognizes it.

### 2) Mageball Identity (Unresolved Personal Arc)
- Initial conflict: “no football team.”  
- In practice: Joe didn’t care much, so the arc needs a better emotional hook.
- Potential: Joe becomes a *Mageball cornerstone* (or becomes the face of “traditionalists vs sorcery” tension).
- Strong lever: tie Mageball to legacy and identity:
  - Dad wants “football,” school forces “mageball,” Pappy has “war.” Joe gets squeezed.

### 3) Moral Line / Escalation Capability
- Joe has proven he will do extreme things if he believes it’s strategically correct (and if a failed save gives him “this is genius” energy).
- This creates a consistent character tension:
  - he *feels* like a good kid,
  - but he’s willing to cause catastrophic harm if framed as “protecting friends” or “pre-empting a threat.”

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## Key Relationships
### Party
- **Ben Mulkerberg:** chaotic partnership. Joe backed Ben at The Circle and escalated violently. Joe is now entangled in Ben’s gang conflict.
- **Soren:** ally; volatile. Joe can be used as a stabilizer or an enabler depending on mood.

### Family
- **Fork & Maum:** anchors of warmth and normalcy. Their presence is your “home scene” palette cleanser.
- **Kevlar & Devlin:** comedic beats, but also *stakes* (they’re innocents, a lever for tension later).

### School NPC Orbit
- Joe plays well in group RP; he can be used to bounce off:
  - teachers (especially Defazio-type “radical history” teacher, if you use him),
  - Estrada (whom the party bullies constantly),
  - D’Serris (projection/appearance; Joe is the character who “feels” the leyline changes).

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## Major Events Joe Was Involved In (Chronological, high-signal)
### The Football Cookout Intro (tone establishment)
- Scene concept: football family cookout; Dad gives an inspiring football speech.
- Punchline:
  - “Honey, didn’t they switch to mageball?”
  - Pappy hijacks Joe’s body with a MAGA-ish rant (“sorcerers are ruining this country!”)
  - Dad: “Pappy, give the boy his body back—he gets a nasty cough!”

### The Circle Explosion (campaign pivot)
- Joe went with Ben to The Circle.
- Joe spotted danger (Insight success) and chose not to engage directly.
- Joe set up a **trap** by the passenger door and a **puddle of oil/accelerant** beneath/near the car.
- DM asked intentions; Joe clarified: **“I’m cooking these fuckers out.”**
- Joe failed an Int/Wis-style check (rolled a 5) and decided this was “one of the better ideas he’s ever had.”
- Joe interpreted Ben’s moment as the signal to ignite → **gas station explosion**:
  - 1 teen trapped and burned
  - 2 unrelated adults inside the store killed (“liquified”)
- Joe and Ben escaped (given 2 turns to dash 120 ft).
- Aftermath:
  - Pip survives (injured) and retaliates.
  - Joe becomes a co-owner of the consequences even if no one saw him do it.

### Post-Explosion Direction
- Joe is now in the “gang arc” whether he wants it or not.
- Joe’s actions set a precedent: if threatened, he may choose extreme solutions.

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## Items / Props
- **Magical Action Figure of Pappy** (critical)
  - Joe believes it contains Pappy.
  - DM truth: Pappy is in Joe; toy is a trigger/tuning fork.
- **Madden/Shadowboxing** (tone props)
- Potential “perimeter trap” competence (Joe has demonstrated tactical prep skill).

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## DM Levers (what reliably moves Joe)
1) **Protecting friends** (especially when Ben is threatened)
2) **Legacy / masculinity / “what kind of man am I?”** (Dad + Pappy + war)
3) **Clear tactical problems** (Joe shines when there’s a system to solve)
4) **Authority telling him he’s powerless** (he reacts by proving he has agency)
5) **Pappy surfacing** (raises stakes, shifts tone, gives you horror/exposition)

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## Tone Calibration Notes
- Joe is your “normal” lens character — which makes Pappy/war horror hit harder.
- Keep Joe’s humor, but let Pappy moments feel *cold* and real.
- Joe’s violent escalation (Circle) was fun at the table; the world can react without “punishing the player” by focusing consequences on:
  - pressure,
  - paranoia,
  - moral weight,
  - and “you can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.”

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## Current Status (start-of-next-session snapshot)
- Joe is physically at Ben’s house (now a staging ground).
- Joe is implicated in the Circle explosion (unknown to authorities, but known to Pip).
- Joe still carries the toy (tuning fork) and is increasingly positioned to be the party’s hook into:
  - the Korrin Crisis history,
  - D’Serris’ agenda,
  - and the Coherence/Instrumentality ideology.