Jimmy Stout

Appearance

Like most senior chefs, Jimmy Stout is a somewhat portly man. Usually seen wearing a spotless apron that dos little to cover his bulging gut, Jimmy is a man of medium high. His hair is a light sandy brown and perpetual brown fuzz covers his wobbling cheeks and multiple chins. He usually has a friendly manner and grasps the hands of friends or acquaintances with his meaty fist whenever they approach him. Light hearted jests come easily to him, as his blue eyes twinkle merrily. Overall, he would strike one as a person who’s fairly easy to get along with.

Special Equipment

Among the various implements that he wields in the kitchens is an ordinary steak knife. For some reason, it is always tucked into the waist band that straddles Jimmy’s ample hips.

History

Jimmy Stout was born into a fairly comfortable background. His father was a local merchant of no little means, which meant that Jimmy and his two siblings grew up in relative prosperity. A cheerful lad, Jimmy Stout soon gained the affection of all his relations and tutors with his easy going ways and ready smile. However, he was not an especially bright student and thus naturally begun to lag behind his peers in his studies. Unlike his two younger brothers, Jimmy lacked the appetite for the realm of academia and begun to loathe subjects such as arithmetic and geography with a passion. This was soon reflected in his mediocre grades. Alarmed by his situation, Jimmy’s father hastened to remind him that as his eldest son, Jimmy would take over his father’s small import business someday. And Jimmy did listen to his father’s concerns and attempt to perform well in his studies.

Sadly however, his true interests lay elsewhere. As long as he could remember, Jimmy had always adored the taste of cooked meat. Unlike many infants of his age back when he was still a baby, he had adapted unusually quickly to solid food, especial meat which he came to relish. There was nothing that made Jimmy happier than tucking into his mothers roast beef. Even tears brought on by an irritated tutor telling him that he was a brainless nincompoop, would vanish whenever the smell of his mother cooking her delicious beef stew finally reached his nostrils as he was returning home.

Now this by itself was not all that odd. However, what distinguished Jimmy from his peers was the fact that he was always curious as to the source of the delicious meat that he would gorge himself on with wild abandon. Instead of pursuing traditional childhood pastimes, Jimmy would instead stare intently at passing chickens and cows, greedily fantasising about how good it would be to have in his stomach at this very moment.
Born with highly sensitive taste buds, he could perceive the differences that existed between different types of meat. He enjoyed all types immensely, but with an inborn gift of a natural gourmet, he could instantly tell which the best were.

Naturally, his love for food, led to young Jimmy developing an enduring interest in cooking. Starting out as his mother’s apprentice whenever she needed help d, he would watch her intently , trying to understand exactly how she accomplished the amazing things that she did in the kitchen. In due time, under her indulgent guidance, he soon discovered that had an innovative talent for cooking, which astonished both him and his family. Very soon, he was not only cooking his mother’s favourite recipes, but also creating his own unique variations that if anything, surpassed his mother’s creations. And these culinary experiments were indeed truly different from the original dishes that had inspired them , since unlike his mother, Jimmy no longer simply restricted himself to the mainstays of chicken and beef. Something in him hungered with a burning passion to taste new types of flesh and to do things with them that had never been imagined possible before.

Gradually, some of the neighbourhood pets begun to vanish mysteriously. Determined to venture into new territory, Jimmy had resorted to swiping the puppies and kittens that belonged to his peers so as to make them part of the new dishes that he had in mind. Thus, given the extent of his obsessesion with gluttony, he decided at the age of fifteen that he wanted to become a chef. Though his father was initially aghast at this decision, he finally relented under pressure from his wife and allowed young Jimmy to become an apprentice at the nearby inn.

In that rough and ready establishment, Jimmy soon proved hat head what it took to become an accomplished cook. Working hard to perfect his favourite varieties of meat, stewed, roasted and grilled alike, he was given great freedom to us whatever sources of meat he deemed necessary. The inn owner, who was a shifty man, didn’t care what his new assistant cook used as long as it allowed him to cut down on his own operating expenses. And so rats, toads, crows and other countless varieties of vermin soon added their unique flavours to Jimmy’s every expanding list of recipes. The patrons loved his food and when the head cook retired, Jimmy was hired to replace him.

Soon, the daily throng of customers queuing up outside the descript inn simply to taste his cat testicle stew n caught the attention of a more reputable establishment, the Drunk Mermaid . A profitable tavern that served up-heel merchants, it soon realised that by getting a new cook well-versed in preparing ‘‘rustic fare’ , it could cold cater to the demands of wealthy but jaded merchants who wanted a taste of something ‘traditional’’ and ‘‘simple’‘.

Approached by an agent of the Drunk Mermaid with a proposition to work in their kitchens, Jimmy found himself almost delirious with joy at the prospect of a more elegant cliental finally savouring his culinary masterpieces. Making his mind up on the spot, he quickly joined the kitchen staff of the Drunken Mermaid. The first few months were hell for Jimmy. Although his cheerful disposition made him popular among much of the kitchen staff, the head chef was extremely hostile towards the new addition, considering him an unsophisticated rustic who had no business serving an inn of the Mermaid’s calibre. But more to the point, he was also deeply unsettled by the massive popularity that the new arrival attracted with his simple but savoury and wholesome dishes. On numerous occasions, he forced Jimmy to throw away perfectly edible meals after he had spent hours painstaking preparing them, often citing rather dubious excuses as to why they were unfit for consumption. Jimmy, being a rather patient and tolerant person, patiently put up with this abuse for the first few months of his term. Although he detested his overbearing superior who was a man of mediocre talent, Jimmy was of a placid temperament and was confident that as time passed, the old fool would be dismissed as the head chef and that Jimmy would be given his job instead.

Moreover, he had a more pressing problem to deal with. Namely that he was no longer at liberty to use the unique ingredients that had characterised his style of cooking. The head chef was a man of little imagination and would have been appalled by the new varieties of meat that Jimmy had made an essential part of the unique dishes that he was so fond of. It was simply unbearable, having to deprive both his stomach and his mind of the delight that came with cooking and eating different kinds of meat. No words could describe the agony that such deprivation caused him. It was an urge beyond any rational comprehension, one that had utterly dominated him since childhood. The only way that his desire could ever be allowed to fulfil itself was if the head chef were to be replaced suddenly by him. But this was a prospect that did not seem realistic in the long run.

Far worse still, his insatiable urge to procure and consume new varieties of flesh had been further stimulated by the visit of a recent patron, a merchant who had just recently travelled to a far away land of jungles inhabited
by pitch black natives.

A few days ago, when the inn was being closed for the day, this elderly merchant requested the presence of the wonderful cook who had regaled his palate with the simple but hearty goat kidney pie that he had been served. And so Jimmy left, aflutter with nervous excitement, all but oblivious to the seething glower of the head cook. The delighted merchant invited him to drink some wine with him. As the wine flowed, the merchant started effusively praising Jimmy’s cooking. But as the drinking continued, the elderly man begun to regal him with tales of the wondrous tribes he had met in the land of his most recent visit. Some of them were apparently cannibals that bought and sold slaves for consumption, much the same way men in civilized lands purchased cows or fowls to eat. When questioned by foreign traders as to why they hungered for human flesh, the cannibals insisted that human flesh had a strong flavour far superior to any other flesh in existence.

Following this encounter and revelation, Jimmy begun to have sleepless nights blighted by a burning desire to cook and eat his first meal that consisted of human flesh. Every time as his eyes closed, he would be tormented by a vision of himself about to butcher a copse for his cook pots, only to have it suddenly vanish into thin air as his knife plunged down, leaving him filled with an anguish beyond understanding.

But he could not fulfill this need to break new ground where his cookery was concerned. Taking a human life would be different from anything else that he had ever done and if he was arrested for murder, the repercussions would be severe. After all, killing an actual human being was an unforgivable crime and sin. To kill a person merely to provide the next dish that he would cook, would be to take the path of evil regardless of how much he wanted to do it.

Fortunately for young Jimmy Stout, this painful struggle with his conscience would rapidly be resolved for him in the week that followed his remarkable yet so painful epiphany. In a decision that surprised no one among the kitchen staff, the head chef was finally sacked and replaced with Jimmy Stout. As everyone celebrated the promotion of this likable young man to the supreme position of head chef, his dismissed superior was planning revenge.

On the day after his promotion was announced, Jimmy decided to purchase a new meat knife to replace the previous one that his predecessor had taken with him in a fit of spite and jealously. With this plan in mind, he went to a nearby market that sold used, second hand implements of various kinds. While looking for a suitable steak knife, he finally found what he was looking for. It was a simple steak knife that seemed in good condition. Without hesitating, he purchased it immediately. But as his fingers closed over the handle of the knife, a shudder of mingled ecstasy and intense hunger ran through his body, a most pleasurable sensation that he had hitherto only enjoyed prior to feasting on a newly discovered type of meat. It was all rather bizarre really, and young Jimmy Stout felt somewhat unsettled by the strange effect the mere touch of the knife on naked skin was having on him.

A strange combination of both unfathomable delight and nervous anxiety still suffused him as he made his way back to the inn to open the kitchens. It was on his way back that his vengeful former superior sought his vengeance. As Jimmy walked into a dark alley, the former head chef of the Drunken Mermaid rushed out of the shadows, screaming wildly as the steak knife that he had pilfered from the kitchens, thrust savagely at Jimmy’s ample gut. Alas for him, Jim was quicker. In a reflex action that he was barely conscious of, the knife clenched in Jimmy’s hand thrust deep into his assailant’s right eye, killing him instantly. And in that moment as the knife perforated the crazed brain of his arch-nemesis, Jimmy did finally surrender to the desire that had plagued him for so long. An alien presence lingering within his bloody blade, swiftly merged with his own long repressed cravings in that instant. And so he acted swiftly. Discreetly making it appear as if he was helping to assist someone who had drunk too much strong wine, Jimmy dragged the dead man all the way to the tiny back entrance of his kitchen. Fumbling for his keys, he unlatched it. It was still too early for the rest of the kitchen staff to have arrived, since Jimmy in his zealousness for his chosen craft, often arrived an hour or two earlier than the official opening of the kitchens. There, in his solitude, he begun to prepare his finest culinary master piece yet, working on turning the his predecessor’s corpse into a delicious stew that he would afterwards pass off as a beef dish. Everything was used, except the bones which were hacked into smaller bits and then thrown to starving street dogs.

In typical fashion, the patrons loved this new special which Jimmy had seemingly created just for the heck of it. Some of them even commented that the beef tasted more like well-matured veal, right on the verge of being considered proper beef. As for Jimmy himself, he was simply elated. Human flesh surpassed anything that he had ever eaten or cooked previously.

That was the turning point for Jimmy Stout, the pleasant young cook driven by the all consuming desire to sample and cook any type of living thing that he could find and kill. From being a chubby boy with a slightly morbid obsession, he had become a murderous cannibal. Having tasted and prepared it for the very first time in his life, Jimmy knew that he could never deprive either himself or his cherished customers of the rich repasts that human flesh had to offer.

The knife that he had used to carry out his first murder, soon became his inseparable companion, its dark taint urging his natural tendencies to assert themselves without restrain. Under its malevolent guidance, Jimmy has gone on to create a string of new dishes that make generous use of human flesh.

Unknown to his employers and staff, Jimmy Stout has actually hired criminals to abduct homeless people and street children for him kill and cook. His victims are usually taken to a largely derelict warehouse located some distance away from the inn where he works. On the eve of a cooking a meal that this cannibal has looked forward to preparing, Jimmy makes a trip to this dank place to collect his victims. After paying his suppliers, he then proceeds to butcher his captives and carries their remains away in a sack to his kitchens. Only the bones are discarded. They are left behind for the massive pack of stray dogs that linger outside the building to gorge on. These animals are far too skinny for Jimmy to cook and eat, which is why he leaves them in peace to get rid of the parts that he has no use for. Meanwhile, his fame as a chef grows ever stronger. All in all, life is rather good for Jimmy Stout, the bumbling fat kid turned master chef.

Roleplaying Notes

Jimmy is not a complete monster. Unlike many other serial killers he takes no special pleasure in killing his victims. Be they puppies or orphan children, he always kills them as quickly and humanely as possible, not wanting to needlessly prolong their agony and terror. There is even a part of him that is aware that his actions are repugnant and evil, but it is a rather weak and detached part of his consciousness. Between his own innate urges to make scrumptious feasts out of human and other exotic types of meat, and the hold that his knife has over his mind, he has little room left for regret. The knife in question that he wields, is the sinister and accursed Knife Of Meat Loving. However, instead of planting an alien desire in Jimmy’s mind as it has with its previous users, it is merely causing him to gradually forego his inhibitions about allowing his own urges to run free. As time passes and the knife continues to remain by his side, it is only a matter of time before he will becoming a ravening cannibal willing to kill and eat anyone and anything without fear of the consequences. Until that dire day finally comes however, Jimmy will continue to be the friendly and bubbly man that everyone likes. Any PCs who meet him will discover that he is both a fine cook and easy man to chat with. However, should they make him nervous by questioning him too intensely about a recent string of disappearances involving the abduction of street people, he might very well snap and rush at them with his cherished steak knife.

Plot Hooks

Going undercover- The PCs are tasked to investigate a string of murders involving street children. Jimmy Stout is the culprit but in order to expose him, they will have to infiltrate the vicious criminal gangs that provide him with his victims.

A new delicacy-The PCs are hired as the personal guards of a wealthy non-human NPC who wishes to dine at the Drunken Mermaid and meet its famed head chef in person. Can they stop Jimmy Stout before his urges get the better of him and he decides to turn his latest fan into his latest meal?