IDENTIFIED . MOORE, DARRIN "MOOSE"

MALE

BISEXUAL

THIRTY-SEVEN

NOVEMBER 5TH, 1975

AMERICAN

ENGLISH

MOOSE

0.65
(+0.25)

IDENTIFIED GUARD CAPTAIN

N/A

RING OF FORTITUDE

11/30/13 by Jess

Despite having spent the vast majority of his life unemployed, Moose has only recently managed to get himself an honest-to-goodness real job. He works as a semi-professional bodyguard, and while he's still in line for full training, he's mostly used in jobs where his physical size and intimidation factor are an aspect. With the agency he worked for having lost the majority of its staff overnight, Moose has suddenly found himself in high demand. He provides extra security at large events, and occasionally guards minor celebrities who, while not being targets for legitimate kidnapping attempts, might be bothered by fans unnecessarily.

At the moment, Moose does not have a place to live. He's living homeless on skid row, but he's hoping he'll have a proper place to sleep in the next few weeks.

Moose is intimidating, to say the least. He stands 6'8", and weighs just over 300 lb. He's extremely muscular and fairly wide shouldered, and could easily be described as 'built like a tank'. His body has plenty of scars, most of which are hidden under his clothes, but the most prominent of all his scars is the one on his face. The line cuts across the bridge of his nose, running nearly ear to ear, and still has signs of the stitches that put him back together. Considering the urgency of the accident that caused it, and the fact that his brain was bleeding at the time, the stitches were intended to hold him together and little else. By the time he was stable enough to worry about it, the scar was there for good.

Moose tends to wear a badly fitting low quality suit. It's clearly made for someone a few inches shorter in height and a few inches thicker in gut, so it does't sit well on him. He always wears a gold ring with a dark green stone.

Few people will ever really get to know Moose, and it's little wonder why. For one thing, he's intimidating. Everything about him radiates unpleasantness. From his size to his natural scowl, meaning that even if he's not actually upset, people tend to believe that he is. It takes a whole lot of happiness for him to smile, and such an event is particularly rare.

With all that in mind, it's not much of a surprise that Moose isn't the most socially adjusted of people. He's spent the past fifteen years of his life in prison, meaning that much of the social rules he runs on are alien to the outside word. Never trust anyone. Assume everyone has their own agenda. No one is going to look out for you, and everyone is looking to prey on you. His time in prison has also left him technologically stunted. When Moose went into prison, Google hadn't been founded. The idea of listening to music on your iPod while typing away is as alien to him as the surface of mars is to the average human being.

A traumatic brain injury that came as a result of his capture has left Moose a bit addled, only adding to his problems. He's quick to anger, and can be easily frustrated by things that people would assume aren't a big deal. The damage to his brain means that he frequently forgets things, which leaves him with the maddening sensation of something being just on the tip of his tongue--only it never actually comes back to him. He vents his frustration visibly, and while he's working on controlling it, it's not going so well.

That's not to say he's all bad. While he certainly has a particularly spotty and violent history, that part of his life is largely behind him. Moose spent his time in prison mostly productively. He managed to get a GED. He took work skill courses to try and improve his prospects. He was, most of all, extremely well behaved. While he never quite sucked up to the guards for favors, he also didn't get in their way. He didn't cause trouble, didn't start fights, and he followed the rules. He stayed out of solitary, and proved that he could really be a productive member of society if people gave him a chance. This single minded focus on his goal (at the time, getting out) is one of his best features.

The other best feature is the fact that Moose is still sane. The brain damage has cut him off from essentially everything in his old life. He doesn't remember any of his personal history, and has spent every moment he can remember serving time for a crime he doesn't remember committing. The fact that he's made it out is a miracle, and he intends to stay out no matter what the cost. For him, going back to prison would mean the end of everything, and if it came to that, he would take any other option.

Moose couldn't tell you much about his past, but most of it is a matter of public record. Darrin Moore was born on November 5th, 1975 to a single mother south of LA. His grades and attendance in school were spotty at the best of times, and in his teens he fell into a criminal lifestyle. His juvenile arrest record was littered with minor infractions, petty thievery and vandalism. If asked, people had few good things to say about him, and the pattern only progressed as he aged.

It came as little surprise when someone died as a result. During a routine home invasion, Darrin and his accomplice were confronted by a homeowner. A fight ensued, and the homeowner end up dead. If Darrin had been smart, and had planned it out, he might very well have gotten away with it. The man lived alone, no one was alerted to the murder, and they had plenty of time. Instead he botched it. The whole thing fell down around him when a neighbor spotted the pair trying to remove the body from the house. The police were summoned, and Moose took off, leaving his accomplice behind. While the accomplice was apprehended quickly, he got off light in comparison--Darrin's pursuit ended with him losing control of the car, sending it rolling down an embankment before slamming into a tree.

The fact that he survived was a miracle, but it wasn't without it's setbacks. Moose suffered serious brain damage, alongside other more temporary injuries. The brain injury left him with serious difficulty recalling prior events, as well as significant changes to his personality that took several months to settle. When he was recovered enough, still unable to walk, he stood trial, and inevitably was found guilty. Considering he'd been caught red handed and the evidence was extensive, the jury's decision was a foregone conclusion. Darrin was sentenced to fifteen to life years in prison.

Prison was not kind to him. At best he could be described as confused, moving through the motions as if he was in a dream. He had only a loose idea of who he had been, and even that fell away as time passed. People started calling him Moose for his size, and the name stuck. After a few years, he barely answered to 'Darrin'. Everyone called him Moose, and Moose felt more familiar to him. Darrin was someone else--someone who'd done some stupid things and gotten him stuck in prison for what seems like forever. Moose wasn't even entirely clear if there was anyone outside of the prison waiting for him. If they were, they never wrote or visited him. He had no real contact from the outside, and few friends even inside.

He wasn't entirely idle, however. He did his best to improve himself during his time in prison, both physically and mentally. In his free time, he worked out, taking him from athletic to downright muscular. Darrin could never have been described as intelligent, and Moose was even worse. He struggled on things that should have been easy, and even pouring every bit of energy he had into his studies resulted in below average marks. He passed after several attempts, finally acquiring his GED. With that in hand, he went on to try his hand at trades. There were few options for someone with his conviction, and inevitably he found himself doing the most menial of labor--moving boxes around manually. His size was his main asset, and the only thing he could lean back on.

Time seemed to drag on for Moose. It seemed like every few days he was left wondering if he'd ever get out. His prospects were relatively grim, considering the crime committed, but he did his best anyway. He did as he was told. He didn't make trouble. He kept everything quiet, and if a fight got too bad, would occasionally intervene to avoid anything too serious happening. Even if he had no professional training in combat, the simple fact that he was six foot eight, over three hundred pounds, and built like a tank was enough to put a non-violent end to any fight that wasn't serious.

Inevitably, it was his good behavior that gave him a chance. The prison system was overflowing, and Moose had documented personality changes, severe brain damage, and extremely good behavior. He'd been productive and showed a legitimate intent to improve himself. He'd tried. The fact that he had no place to go was a considerable burden, but with the prisons overcrowded as they were, a man who seemed so unlikely to reoffend was a low priority, and he was released.

Even on release, Moose had nothing. He had the clothes on his back and little else. His life savings could be held in one hand, and he was forced to resort to homeless shelters in the city, trying to get assistance--and a job. Most of the time his food came from there too, and if he's lucky, he manages to do a few odd jobs for cash.