12 KiB
12 KiB
Pappy “Harlan” Football – History & Secrets
Use: DM-facing lore. Don’t show to players as-is.
PC Link: Grandfather of Joe “Football” – action figure, war flashbacks, Root trauma.
Optional Twist: If you go with the “Joe is a golem” angle, Pappy was one too.
1. Snapshot
- Full Name: Harlan “Pappy” Football
- Age at War: Early 20s during the Leyline Crisis
- Role: Front-line infantry / field runner with minimal medic training
- Post-War: Became a small-town, red-blooded, flag-waving “America but fantasy” grandpa; never really processed what he saw
- Current State:
- Mundane understanding: Dead veteran, remembered through a magical action figure keepsake.
- Truth: A chunk of his soul/imprint is entangled with the Root, and the action figure is its easiest “handle.”
2. Public Story / What Joe’s Family Believes
This is what Joe, his parents (Fork & Maum), and the sisters (Kevlar & Devlin) would reasonably know.
- Pappy fought in Leyline Crisis decades ago.
- He was:
- “Brave as hell,”
- “Tougher than boiled leather,”
- One of the guys who “stood his ground when the sky was on fire over Korrin.”
- He never talked about specifics, just:
- “We pushed the line too hard,”
- “The mages in the nice coats broke the world and sent us to fix it with rifles.”
- After the war:
- Settled in the valley / Green Gully region,
- Worked a simple job (farm, factory, local guard – you can pick),
- Became the archetype Joe is trying to emulate: meat, beer, football, god, country.
- The action figure:
- Is a cheap, mass-produced “Heroes of Korrin” toy from just after the war,
- Enchanted with a basic “recorded phrase / minor guardian” spell,
- Pappy carried it as a joke/lucky charm once the kids were born,
- On his deathbed, he pressed it into Joe’s hands: “You keep ol’ Pappy with you. He’ll set you straight.”
The family thinks any “possession” moments are:
- Joe being weird,
- Or just “that old toy acting up.”
3. True History – Korrin & the Crisis
3.1 Before Korrin
- Harlan Football enlisted young:
- Poor-ish family,
- “Somebody has to go,”
- More practical grit than patriotism at first.
- Quickly developed a rep for:
- Doing the ugly jobs without flinching,
- Dragging wounded out under fire,
- Talking shit about officers but following orders anyway.
3.2 At the Front
- By the time he reaches Korrin, the war is in its late, desperate stage.
- His unit is stationed in trenches / ruined outskirts around the city:
- They can see the Convergence Engine on the skyline,
- They feel the Root pulses in the dirt under them.
- He experiences multiple “Engine surges”:
- Spells going off wrong,
- People half-teleporting and fusing with walls,
- Time “stuttering” mid-charge.
He’s not a mage, but he’s not blind:
- He knows this is not just “stronger magic.”
- He hears rumors about “the pencil-necks in the tower” who keep turning the dial.
3.3 The Day of the Korrin Crisis (Your Cold Open)
- Pappy is in the trench on the day the Crisis peaks.
- He watches:
- Soldiers torn by leyline tears (your “bisected by reality” scene),
- Men fused with stone and infrastructure,
- Spells and wards screaming as the Root bucks.
Crucial points:
- He sees the first unmistakable pattern in the pulses – the “heartbeat that isn’t yours.”
- He hears officers and Root techs shouting about:
- “Convergence thresholds,”
- “Stability models,”
- “Branch cuts,”
- Though he doesn’t understand the math.
He does not know the word “Coherence” at the time – that comes later or is buried in classified jargon.
4. How Pappy Got Entangled With The Root
This is the hinge that explains the action figure, the visions, and the Joe link.
4.1 The Moment
During the peak of the Crisis:
-
Pappy is:
- Standing / crouched directly above a branch junction in the Root network near Korrin,
- Holding onto a wounded soldier with one hand,
- Clutching a warded dog tag or charm (his, or the kid’s) in the other.
-
When the decision is made in the tower (D’serris / Oversight hitting the override that smears Coherence instead of letting it condense), there’s a huge spike in Root activity:
- The pulse hits the branch under his feet,
- Every charm, ward, and sympathetic link flares at once,
- For a split second, Pappy is:
- Fully “inside” the Root flow,
- While also being a big ball of raw human emotion: terror, rage, refusal to die.
That moment leaves a copy / imprint of him in the network.
Important nuance:
- He doesn’t die right then.
- His soul stays in his body, lives out his life,
- But the Root keeps a ghost image of:
- His nervous system pattern,
- His emotional state,
- His basic “personality architecture.”
Think: Root took a snapshot.
4.2 The “Heroes of Korrin” Toy
- After the war, the Convergence Engine & Root ops are classified to hell.
- But the propaganda machine:
- Pumps out toys, posters, and patriotic bullshit.
- The action figure Joe carries is:
- Factory-enchanted with minor sympathy links:
- Template: “bind to war dead, give comforting phrases, maybe a tiny shield charm.”
- Factory-enchanted with minor sympathy links:
Problem:
- Sloppy enchantment meets a war where the Root itself is weird.
- Pappy, as a Root-imprinted soldier, is a perfect target for the toy’s sympathetic hooks.
- When his family buys one with his unit’s insignia and he handles it regularly, the toy’s charm latches onto:
- The Pappy-in-the-Root snapshot instead of just a generic “hero template.”
Result:
- Over time, the figurine becomes a focus:
- It can call up fragments of Pappy’s Root imprint,
- Pappy’s actual, aging soul gets “pulled” toward that channel, especially near death,
- After he dies, what’s left of him distributed between:
- A normal soul afterlife (however you want that to work),
- And the Root-bound imprint, now heavily linked to the toy.
That’s why:
- The action figure can:
- Occasionally “possess” Joe,
- Speak with Pappy’s voice,
- React to Root anomalies and D’serris.
5. Pappy, D’serris, and the Leyline Crisis
5.1 What Pappy Knows / Remembers
From Pappy’s perspective:
- “We were losing. The tower people wanted a silver bullet.”
- “They turned the grid into a weapon. The grid didn’t like it.”
- “Some analyst in the tower yelled about ‘pattern deviation’ and ‘non-random noise’… nobody listened until it was too late.”
- “Then somebody did something up there that ended the war overnight and broke everything underneath it.”
He only later puts a name to D’serris:
- He recognizes D’serris from post-war hearings / briefings / wanted posters / internal blame games.
- Pappy’s view:
- “He’s the bastard who pulled the lever that saved Korrin and fucked the rest of us.”
- That’s where the MAGA-esque “THOSE GODDAMN SORCERERS ARE RUINING THIS GODDAMN COUNTRY” energy comes from.
5.2 What D’serris Knows About Pappy (Optional)
If you want that connection:
- D’serris might:
- Have logs of Root “snapshots” taken during the Crisis,
- Know there’s a cluster of persistent imprints tied to a particular unit in the trenches,
- Recognize Joe’s figurine / aura as:
- “One of the Korrin ghosts that never fully resolved.”
He might not know it’s specifically “Harlan Football,” but he knows Joe is carrying a Root echo from that day.
6. The Golem Angle – Pappy & Joe as Construct-Bloodline
If you commit to Joe being a golem, Pappy being one too is the cleanest way to do it.
6.1 War-Era Root Constructs (“Ley-Golems”)
- During the Leyline War, one faction:
- Experimented with Root-anchored constructs:
- Artificial bodies grown / sculpted to:
- Be tough,
- Be repairable,
- Host a soul imprint that could be “backed up” in the Root.
- Artificial bodies grown / sculpted to:
- Experimented with Root-anchored constructs:
- These soldiers:
- Look human,
- Bleed (sort of),
- Age slowly or unevenly,
- But have:
- Subtle tells (odd healing, unnatural resilience),
- A special reaction to Root spikes.
Pappy Football was one of these:
- Either:
- Volunteered for an “enhancement program” and had his soul bound to a constructed body,
- Or was resurrected from near-death into a body grown to be Root-compatible.
- The Crisis at Korrin:
- Supercharged this binding,
- Made his Root imprint especially strong.
6.2 Post-War “Bloodline”
- After the war, Pappy:
- Leaves service, tries to live a normal life.
- Marries / has “kids.”
- Mechanically / lore-wise:
- His children and grandchildren are:
- Hybrids – human souls in partially construct-compatible bodies,
- Or literal golem “descendants” grown with his template and implanted with new souls.
- His children and grandchildren are:
Joe being a golem:
- Fits his:
- Weirdly average but absurdly tough vibe,
- “Action figure inhabits me” moments,
- Occasional disconnect from normal physical limits (you can lean into this later).
Pappy’s war-body:
- Was a prototype Joe:
- Stronger,
- More tightly bound to the Root,
- Less stable.
When he died, the Root imprint had a strong template to work from.
6.3 How This Shows Up In Play
Signs both Pappy and Joe are golem-type:
- Joe:
- Recovers from injuries faster than he should,
- Maybe has faint “seams” or runes that only show under certain light,
- Magic that targets “humanoids” still works, but constructs-related stuff feels off around him.
- The action figure:
- Reacts to Joe’s true nature – it’s like two versions of the same pattern talking to each other.
- Pappy in visions:
- Might look:
- Slightly too symmetrical,
- A little “designed,”
- With scars that don’t behave like normal flesh.
- Might look:
You can also give Joe some “oh shit” moment later:
- Pappy: “You ever wonder why you bounce back the way you do, boy?”
- Root anomaly peels some of Joe’s “skin” metaphorically/visually in a vision,
- He gets a glimpse of what he really is.
7. Pappy as a Table Tool (What You Can Use Him For)
7.1 Lore Delivery
- Pappy is your:
- On-demand war flashback,
- Walking testimony about Korrin,
- Emotional vector for “the Root is not a toy.”
Whenever you need to:
- Explain a past decision,
- Show the cost of D’serris’s choice,
- Make the leyline feel like real horror,
You have Pappy “ride” Joe for a scene.
7.2 Moral Compass / Anti-Compass
- He’s not neutral. He’s biased as hell:
- Hates magic bureaucracy,
- Distrusts Oversight,
- Sees Root stuff as tools that got out of hand.
- That’s useful:
- Sometimes he’s right (“don’t overclock the node, dumbass”),
- Sometimes he’s dangerously wrong (“cut the trunk, who cares about the casualties?”).
You can put Joe in situations where:
- Pappy urges the “war solution,”
- Friends / teachers urge the “school solution,”
- Joe has to choose.
7.3 Coherence Hook
- The Coherence recognizes Pappy’s imprint as:
- A familiar pattern from when it was “born.”
- It may:
- Use Pappy as a voice,
- Copy his mannerisms,
- Try to talk to Joe in Pappy’s voice even when the action figure is not active.
Creepy angle:
- Joe hears Pappy saying:
- “We pushed the line too far…”
- Then the voice shifts mid-sentence, same tone but wrong rhythm:
- “…and we are still pushing. I remember you. You remember me.”
8. Player-Facing Hooks (Teasers You Can Leak)
Stuff you can let slip in-game, piece by piece:
- Pappy:
- Was at Korrin,
- Saw the worst of the Crisis,
- Calls D’serris “the bastard who saved the city and broke the world.”
- The toy:
- Occasionally says things Joe never heard Pappy say in life,
- Reacts to Root pulses,
- Warms up or vibrates near subnodes.
- In visions:
- Pappy sometimes seems to know more than a normal ground grunt should:
- Glimpses of the control tower,
- Awareness of the “heartbeat” pattern.
- Pappy sometimes seems to know more than a normal ground grunt should:
If you flip on the golem angle later:
- You can reveal:
- Pappy’s body wasn’t entirely natural,
- Joe’s never truly been “just a regular guy,”
- The Root has a blueprint for “Football soldiers” tucked inside itself.