Samuel "Shoutin' Sam" Randall
I don't know what it was that set Shoutin' Sam off, but when he left, it was like goddamned Apaches had busted in here and had a scalpin' party in the saloon...
Appearance
Samuel Randall is fairly short, standing about 5'5'. He is burly and wide shouldered, and has huge arms and legs. He has a walrus-like black moustache and a black mane that hangs down to his shoulders, with a small braid in the center; the top of his head is bald, though he disguises this with his battered hat, which he rarely, if ever, removes. His clothes are usually stained in a state of great disrepair, while his gun, the famous 'Flaming Molly', is always spotlessly clean and shiny. He is never seen without his favorite buffalo-skin vest, and he carries an Apache tomahawk hanging from his belt.
Randall has a deep, gravelly voice, and speaks from deep in his barrel-like chest. He tends to speak quite louder than is necessary in a given situation, the provenance of his nickname Shoutin' Sam, but when his mood becomes dangerous, he speaks in a less boisterous, more threatening and low tone.
Randall usually adopts a boisterous, profane, gruffly-mocking personality. However, within this facade lies a core of incredible rage, exposed usually in the face of a challenge or an insult, rage which causes the usually-gregarious Shoutin' Sam to shut up like a clam and speak in low, grinding tones.
History/Background
Samuel Randall was born to a young couple in Illinois in 1851, a child of the heartlands of America.
When the news of South Carolina's secession came, his father, Isaiah Garrison Randall, was one of the first of the over 250,000 men of Illinois to join the Union Army to fight the Confederacy; he was killed by a Confederate bullet at the Battle of Perryville.
When Randall's mother recieved the news, the grief broke her. She gradually transformed from a loving mother into a crazed and drunken taskmaster who made the young Samuel's life a living hell; daily beatings left his back covered in scars, and instilled in him a hatred both of the Southerners who had caused his father's death, but of women.
Then, on a March evening in 1866, Samuel finally struck back against his mother, who by then had driven them deep into debt and made Randall a broken young man. Reports indicate that he killed his mother with a lumber axe and fled the homestead, carrying a rifle, a bottle of whiskey, and 2 dollars. Running the border, Samuel forged westward into Kansas and then farther westward, towards the Territories.
It was 5 years later, in 1871, that Samuel Randall emerged as one of the most dangerous gunfighters in the area of Tombstone, Arizona. He had already been given the nickname 'Shoutin' Sam'. But his Tombstone years gave him another reputation, for which he is still feared, that of being 'Sam the Smasher'.
Sam was, and remains, an incredibly dangerous individual. In his Tombstone days, simple arguments and insults in the saloons he frequented with his companions often turned into shootouts; while this is not generally unusual for Tombstone, the sheer level of destruction to property and individuals caused by Randall was in itself unheard of. His explosive, murderous temper led to unheard-of numbers of killings perpetrated by the vicious gunslinger. Eventually, the authorities could no longer overlook him. Shoutin' Sam fled Tombstone, heading north.
He has since roamed Idaho, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, quenching his rage in saloons across the landscape of boomtowns. He seems to have no real purpose in his wanderings, though he has made spare cash as a buffalo hunter and an Indian fighter (on one of his fights against Apaches, Sam gained control of his famed tomahawk, since used as a tool to cause yet more devastation in his rages). He is known for smashing saloons, taverns, and whorehouses. He was charged with arson for the fiery destruction of a general store in Butte, Montana. He has murdered at least 9 prostitutes and other assorted women. He has engaged in a thousand gunfights, usually being the victor, though twice he has been wounded, leading to a stiff left arm and a painful elbow.
Randall's true motivation, it seems, is to quench his burning anger in blood. Recent engagements and meetings with Samuel have marked him as seeming tired, exhausted, perhaps worn out from a life of killing and running. His temper is as hair-triggered as ever, and shows no signs of stopping, but he seems take less fierce pleasure in the fight than he used to. Sam's hair isn't as black as it used to be- grey hairs are showing in his moustache. But, no doubt, he will not stop until he is brought down in a hail of his opponent's bullets, and laid to rest in Boot Hill.
Special Equipment
Sam Randall has nothing particularly of interest save for his weapons- his pistol, Flaming Molly, is one of the rare LeMat revolvers, an unusual weapon with 8 chambers for bullets and a center chamber for shot, which he took off the body of a former Confederate officer in Tonopah, Nevada.
He also possesses an Apache tomahawk, which he got in his battles in New Mexico Territory against Apache raiders.
Not Registered Yet? No problem.
Do you want Strolenati super powers? Registering. That's how you get super powers! These are just a couple powers you receive with more to come as you participate.
- Upvote and give XP to encourage useful comments.
- Work on submissions in private or flag them for assistance.
- Earn XP and gain levels that give you more site abilities (super powers).
- You should register. All your friends are doing it!
? Responses (5)
Probably not my best work... I just wanted to do something Wild West.
Not too bad, Just the sort of hard fightin, hard drinking, SOB to have on your side in a shoot-out. Good history.
I am all for western characters, fantastic (in the fantasy aspect) or not. We need more non-straight fantasy characters around here.
Two things:
Free-text should be western, if you want to link up to the rest of the western styled posts. Wild-West, Wierd-West, X-West, and Steam-Punk are all possilbe western backgrounds.
Extra lines between paragraphs make for easier reading.
As a woman killer,he won't be very popular in the Wild West,exspialy if he killed *respectable* women as well as prostitutes.There was parts of the Wild West where white women were rare and deeply valued.
Well, this fellow would make for a good violent encounter, not much redeeming to this guy.