|
LostEggs /
ClementIndex | Lost Eggs | Player Characters | Clement Casting: Patrick Bauchau Setting: Earth Element: Wood  An older man, average height and thin, with shoulder-length grey hair, sharp nose, and piercing hazel eyes. He has a thin face and unmistakably Gallic features. He wears slightly shabby but clean suits of an older cut. It is hard to tell an exact age, though he does appear to have wandered into the Autumn of his life. He often carries a cane or umbrella, though he rarely if ever looks as though he needs it. Clement was born in the mid 20th century in the south of France, when DeGaulle was just beginning to turn the country around from wartime destruction to growth and prosperity. He was an orphan, or at least told he was, and lived under the State until he was eighteen. Not happy with his personal lot in life, he used his personal talents to scrape enough money together to buy passage to the United States. In 1970 he reached New Orleans and became a naturalized citizen, again through a combination of money, graft, and personal talents. Clement has resided and operated out of the Big Easy ever since. Clement has been an actor, a grifter, a carnie, a fortune-teller, a mentalist, and a genius with plants. Overall, he is a consummate performer. He is also thoroughly corrupt, full of debauchery and hedonism. He has a taste for women, gourmet food, expensive tobacco and the older vintages of absinthe when he can get it. He makes a living selling high-priced occult items and questionably legal plants and herbs he obtains and trades out of his home or by meeting in the French Quarter. Before you ask, the police are some of his best customers. Kris asked: Well, it wasn't going to be the focus, but since you offer... What's your primary vice? There are so many things in this life which have given me pleasure...but if I had to choose one, it would be absinthe. I don't mean that filtered Czech horse-piss they try to pass off nowadays; I am referring to the older vintages, the grande and petite absinthe made from the French wormwood. I think part of its draw is the difficulty in obtaining it, for the good stuff has grown extremely rare. But beyond that, ah, it is the subtlety of taste. The bitterness of the herbs playing off the sweetness of the sugar, all of them doing their slow dance under the cover of the anise. Sometimes, you can substitute molasses or vary the temperature and amount of the water to bring various herbs to the fore. Perhaps, if you are very lucky, you will have the chance to taste this marvelous beverage and see for yourself. Arref asked: Here's a question for Clement: You've seen things. You've done the carnivals. You've conned the marks. What is your favorite carnie act to watch when you want to relax? A lot of it seems too much like work, vous savez? Fortune-telling and mentalist work can be in turns tedious and depressing, depending on just how much faith the mark is willing to invest in your answer. If a troupe is large enough to do actual theater, that will catch my attention. I am as vulnerable to the pull of good acting as anyone. The problem, as you can well guess, is finding talent good enough to bring me into the story. There are, of course, many times that I weary of the company of my fellow man. I have been known to pay off the operator of the Ferris wheel, ride to the top and spend precious hours sitting among the dark and the cold and the stars. Nights where you can't tell whether the smoke from your mouth is from the handwrapped cigarette held in your lips or the condensation of your breath. Where the twinkle and wavering of the stars are calling you to some higher existence not yet realized, or merely the by-product of the flask you snuck up in your pocket. |
