This page is dedicated to the characters in Desolate Days and the tropes they represent.
The City of Havenport
Demarcus "Dee" Blackwell
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Comes from one.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Dee has no qualms with and takes a substantial amount of pleasure in ogling most of Havenport's men.
- Family of Choice: Being raised by a brutally unloving father and having seemingly awkward connections to the rest of his siblings, Dee's functional family is a much more ragtag group of non-blood related individuals throughout Havenport. He even has a touch of paternal instinct toward some of the cities' younger fellows, namely Casimir and Hywel.
- Miniature Senior Citizens: Played with. Dee is well over a hundred years old, he just looks more like a man in his thirties due to his naturally slowed aging. He is also five-foot-one.
Dr. Alaric Graves
Alaric Graves, Ph.D., M.D., F.A.C.S. is a doctor employed by the Regime despite his disdain for it, working as a surgeon both in Swindlehurst and on the crime-ridden streets of Havenport.
- Academic Athlete: In addition to his intellectual prowess, he also played soccer throughout college.
- Boston: He’s from there. No accent, though, unfortunately.
- Broken Ace: A six-foot-two, handsome, former college soccer player with three Ivy League degrees (two from Yale, one from the University of Pennsylvania, all three of which were received before he turned thirty), Alaric is about as on-paper flawless as human beings come. Despite that, he undeniably carries a lot of emotional baggage and issues from his relationship with his parents and his relationship with himself as a parent. Despite his capabilities in most of what he does, Alaric remains distrustful, walled-off, and unable to connect with others.
- Competition Freak: Alaric has a serious competitive streak and seems to both expect very much from himself and to not be the best loser.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The only child of a man who died from being impaled in a car accident Final Destination-style in front of him and a mother who grew disconnected and stricken with grief afterwards.
- Deadpan Snarker: In addition to his general attitude, Alaric has quite a bit of a sharp tongue.
- Disappeared Dad: His father died when Alaric was seven.
- Dr. Jerk: Downplayed. He’s not really an asshole and doesn’t go out of his way to be rude, but he has no qualms about bluntness and treats niceties as frivolous.
- Friendless Background: A side-effect of his troubled life at home, Alaric never had many friends growing up, and that didn’t improve very much as he entered adulthood.
- Frontier Doctor: Though employed by the authoritarian police of Havenport, Alaric frequently performs under-the-radar surgeries that would go undone otherwise.
- Hospital Hottie: Yeah.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Steely blues to match his cold and calculating demeanor.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: See Friendless Background. After his father’s death, focused on academia and basically only that.
- Outliving One's Offspring: His only son, Ramsey, died at birth.
- The Stoic: Despite all of his hardships, Alaric has only cried a handful of times in his forty-three years of living, and the collapse of society certainly hasn’t helped. Much of his outward expressions of emotion remain rather subdued even in moments of anger, and he doesn’t seem to be happy very much of the time.
- Super Doc: Prodigiously intelligent from a young age, Alaric was (and is) an incredibly successful and effective doctor and surgeon, with his only weakness being bedside manner (see Dr. Jerk above).
- Team Dad: Though not really on a formal team, Alaric does display a hint of paternal instinct in the way he’s dealt with some of the citizens of Havenport. This particularly applies to resident troublemakers Beck and Brandon.
Captain Leroy Townsend
Captain Leroy Townsend, formally a sergeant, is just about the worst guy. Both a silent objector and asset to the Regime, Leroy is most well known for his taste in food, taste in violence, and taste in general douchebaggery.
- Being Evil Sucks: He very much loathes the Regime and the sheer state of current affairs, yet he disregards any talk of possible change, citing that nothing will change provided that Havenport’s walls remain upright.Alaric: “You don’t see a way for things to change, then?”Leroy: “Not with the given circumstances. So long as they stand, we’re doomed, ‘cause no new supplies is gettin’ in, and we sure’s hell ain’t gettin’ out.”
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Leroy seems to be rather passionate about making intricate threats.Leroy: “"Unless you want to be picking up your teeth with broken hands, you'll keep your fucking mouth closed.”
- Cynicism Catalyst: In early 2013, much to the disdain of his then-girlfriend Loretta, Leroy enlists in the Regime one day after they begin recruiting civilians. She warns that she'll blow the whistle on his smoking habits (such behaviour was deemed illegal by the city-state’s government) to his higher-ups unless he changes his mind. Leroy instead makes the mistake of turning her in for threatening a Regime Officer - which results in the immediate extermination of his significant other.
- Deadpan Snarker: Causing others grief functions as one of his infrequent methods of achieving gratification, and does he ever revel in slinging biting remarks at unsuspecting victims.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Although he does get a kick out of sleeping around and accepting rumpy pumpy as a form of bribery, Leroy is firmly against making coercive advances.
- Leroy considers himself to be a feminist of sorts - well, he used to, before the Regime rose to power and he started hating everybody equally. He’s still adverse to harming women, though he isn’t afraid to do so.
- Freudian Excuse: As he finds out during his second day on the job, the Regime isn’t inclined to easily forgive those who defy it. After turning his girlfriend in for threatening him, his superiors exterminate her on the spot, demonstrating just how intolerant the government is of dissidents. This moment would go on to heavily deteriorate his mental capacity over time, ultimately numbing him to the Regime’s treachery.
- Hate Sink: Whether he’s threatening to pummel the city’s beloved bakery owner for speaking out of turn, or socking his low-ranking coworkers in the stomach without any clear motive, there isn’t much to Leroy that makes him redeemable in any way.
- Hates Everyone Equally: Despises the poor, the rich, the powerful, and everybody else caught up in Havenport’s mess.
- Karma Houdini: He has yet to face retribution for bombing businesses, engaging in extrajudicial killings, and partaking in bribery. In fact, he's gotten promoted.
- Lack of Empathy: To an almost comedic extent.
- Went as far as arresting a group of individuals for handing out water bottles in the middle of a heatwave in Summer 2021, as costless transactions are deemed illegal in Havenport.
- The Cynic: It’s hard not to be one in the bleak sphere of Desolate Days, but Leroy’s disenchantment exceeds far past the typical measure. Not only does he consider the world around him to be in a state of disrepair, but he’s also of the belief that such circumstances won’t ever change.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Paninis - particularly breakfast paninis.
- You Are What You Hate: He’s a member of the Regime.
The Village of Roanoke
Andrei Asimov
Andrei Alekseievich Asimov is the older brother of Casimir who comes to Roanoke after the middle sibling, Boris, goes missing after an argument. Deeply embarrassed by his past of emotional brooding, running away from home, and being a downright heinous brother, Andrei wants to make amends but isn't exactly sure how to go about doing it.
Elliot Blackwell
Elliot Blackwell Jr. is the son of Elliot Blackwell Sr. and former heir to their upstate New York estate. A bit of an oaf with a characteristically spotty memory, Elliot abandoned human society to go off and live in the woods for a bit before settling back down in Roanoke.
- Age-Appropriate Angst: In his younger years, Elliot was a much more angry and brooding person due to his position in his family and his relationship with his father. He’s since largely grown out of it, but there is undeniably a bit of lingering pain that has not gone away.
- Beard of Sorrow: Played with. Elliot has a beard in part so he feels less bad, as his beard makes him look less like his father, who he would strongly resemble otherwise.
- Big Fun: A big guy who seems to be one of the most genuinely pleasant people to be around.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Comes from one.
- Cloudcuckoolander: The way Elliot views the world and everything in it can come across as a bit confusing. This is largely due to a reaction against his more noble upbringing where he frequently didn’t think much for himself and continued not to in order to worry less. The fact he spent years and years living alone in the woods didn’t help this either.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Wears gardening gloves all the time because his hands are a little bit unsightly. Does so because he thinks this is the polite thing to do. See Dumb is Good below.
- Dumb Is Good: Elliot isn’t the brightest, but he really is such a darling. From the way he interacts with other people in Roanoke, to his pseudo-adopted child, to the way he reminisces longingly about life with his younger brother—it seems rather difficult to dislike the guy. It also doesn’t hurt that he tends to believe people at face value.
- Dumb Muscle: All above added with the fact that he is both tall and strong. Not quite as much as he was in the past, but it still is noticeable in his appearance.
- Ethical Slut: Though perhaps “well-adjusted” not be the most apt descriptor for Elliot, he certainly is kind, morally upright, and not at all depraved. That being said, he has a pretty laissez-faire approach to coitus.
- Feel No Pain: Elliot is both able to scoop live bees out of a hive with his bare hands and chop off individual toes and barely blink.
- Forgetful Jones: He, self-admittedly, has quite the awful memory.
- Friend to All Living Things: The man has a “house squirrel” (finds the term pet too controlling) named Skippy. He leaves Christmas presents out for rodents outside in the form of loosely-wrapped nuts.
- Gentle Giant: Elliot may be huge, but he has an equally big heart. He hates giving orders or subjugating upon anyone, has a very innate paternal instinct, and is almost always kind by default.
- In Harmony with Nature: He bird watches, he feeds squirrels, he does it all.
- Older Than He Looks: He doesn’t look _young_, he still looks roughly forty years old, but that is certainly an improvement above the one-hundred and forty-odd years old that he is.
- Parental Favoritism: Though Elliot did not like his father at all, his father certainly liked him more than he liked his younger brother. Elliot was bred to be the heir to the Blackwell business and estate, and was constantly fed lies by his father that were made to break him down and make him feel superior to others. Though that's not at all fun, it's certainly more attention than his siblings got.
- Parental Issues: Abused and used by his father, Elliot has such an aversion to the man that the fact he looks similar to him can actively ruin his day.
- Raised by Wolves: Not actually, but the idea fits well enough. Spent a fair chunk of his life alone in the woods with no other humanoid life forms around him. Would probably be believable if _he_ raised wolves himself.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Both physically and personality-wise, he and Dee are starkly different individuals.
- Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Elliot’s scatterbrained-ness, general la-de-da attitude, and time spent both inside and outside of the woods has made his fashion choices downright despicable. It doesn’t help that barely any shoes fit his feet. He also hates formal clothing of really any sort.
- The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: He was not meant to take on his father’s business. Not because he was evil, but because he did not have the character for it and did not care to be so invested in capital gains.
Bloodhound
Isaac Calistro
Isaac Severino Calistro is a bit of an oddball. Roanoke's pestilence-incarnate resident doctor as well as one of its most active bachelors, Isaac is a man of strange beginnings and strange present circumstances.
- Abhorrent Admirer: To an extent, Isaac views himself as this. He does not have the greatest self-image.
- Abusive Parents: Isaac’s father was not kind to him. The most descriptive moment we have of Isaac’s father is of him beating him and then burning his only toy when he was a child.. What an asshole. Probably doesn’t help with Disappeared Dad below.
- Back-Alley Doctor: He has no actual qualifications to be a doctor, unlike fellow Roanoker Nox or friend from the otherside of the wall Alaric. This actually causes quite a point of contention, both over the vaccine he develops for the lycanthropy spreading throughout Roanoke as well as his relationship with the butcher.
- Black Blood: Literally. Not used for any censoring purposes, Isaac’s blood is black. Oil black. Tar black. So black that when he blushes, his face turns gray rather than flushing red.
- Comforting the Widow: He sure would like to. He is decent enough not to be so direct. And then he is turned down wholesale.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Has a pair of black, rubber gloves to cover his acid hands.
- Disappeared Dad: Isaac has a child named Gino. He does not raise him, he does not want to raise him, and he doesn’t seem entirely remorseful about the entire thing.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Enjoys staring at Selby’s ass.
- Gratuitous Italian: Perhaps not exactly gratuitous, but his heritage does lend him to certain outbursts of the language, especially when deliberately irritated by his twin brother, Aaron.
- Hopeless Suitor: So much so that he writes a sappy love letter to the man who turned him down. So much moreso that the way the situation unfolds literally leads him to skip town.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Literally the Horseman of Pestilence (the most common replacement of Conquest—who is his twin brother).
- Mad Doctor: In addition to the one below this, this one doesn’t need a whole lot of flavor text.
- Patricide: He did it.
- Plague Doctor: This. This one is pretty self-explanatory. A doctor. Has the mask.
- Remarrying for Your Kids: Inverted. The main reason he and Selby don’t get together in any capacity is that Selby’s oldest child, Ivan, does not like Isaac.
- Ritual Magic: The way his twin brother is introduced to the story is through Isaac using candles, cutting his own skin, mixing blood, and pentagrams to have him come back through a mirror. It’s all very culty and very strange and very Isaac.
- Ship Sinking: His attraction to Selby, while adorable, is unfortunately cut short through Selby’s own decision. Isaac doesn’t take it terribly well.
Cheyenne Macnamara
Cheyenne Turlough Macnamara is a native Irelander, though his main residence has been in the United States of America for the better part of a century. One of Roanoke's local farmers, he spends his days largely out in the fields or in town square eating popsicles.
- Call to Agriculture: Has been a farmer since roughly the 1960's. He's pretty iffy on it for someone who has been doing it for the better part of a century, but he's certainly not an avid anti-farmer. A lack of drive and direction drove him to it, as it was what he was raised to do and precisely what was expected of him from the day he was born.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Of the unlucky variety. Though Pádraig did admit to loving him in return, he and his wartime buddy do not end up together.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Cheyenne does not end up with his childhood crush. Instead, he is turned down and forced to watch him marry and then die over the next several decades.
- Fighting Irish: Born in Enniscrone, County Sligo, Ireland, Cheyenne spent many of his formative years in the twenties and thirties as an underground, lightweight boxer in America's Deep South.
- Forgotten Birthday: Cheyenne has not celebrated a birthday since 1995. By the 2020's, he's forgotten the day completely.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Though he did his best to take his rejection in stride, Cheyenne spends the next decades of his life constantly jealous of the woman the love of his life married, and frequently pictured himself there beside him instead of her.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Cheyenne spent the large majority of his life hopelessly in love with a man named Pádraig ó Néill (the anglicized form of which is Patrick O'Neill), who he finally confessed his emotions to right before boarding a plane back to America in 1949. Pádraig, who aged at a normal rate, turned him down. He knew the emotional strain of himself dying so soon before Cheyenne would be too great for him to bear if they were together. Cheyenne spent the rest of Pádraig's life visiting and caring for him, up until the day he died. Even after Pádraig got married himself.
- Loss of Identity: Cheyenne frequently feels as if he is a bit of a husk of the person he used to be, and does not know who he is or what he wants. It causes the occasional moment of quite serious reflection.
- Men Don't Cry: Subverted. Cheyenne did not cry for seventy-two years straight. On one day, at the tail end of the summer of 2021, it all comes loose.
- Older Than He Looks: Cheyenne is one-hundred and fifteen years old, but barely looks like he's old enough to have graduated college.
- The One That Got Away: Pádraig ó Néill.
- Overalls and Gingham: To match with the fact that he is a farmer in a small town, Cheyenne's most frequently donned article of clothing is a trusty pair of denim overalls.
- Undying Loyalty: To Pádraig.
Dr. Alexander Nox
Ivan Roux
Selby Roux
Simon Roux
