Character: Inspector Allhoff (Identity Crisis tie-in)

[SKJAM!]

Inspector AllhoffPlayer: created by

Val	Char	Cost
10	STR	0
11	DEX	3
11	CON	2
10	BODY	0
18	INT	8
16	EGO	12
15	PRE	5
8	COM	-1
2	PD	0
2	ED	0
3	SPD	9
4	REC	0
22	END	0
21	STUN	0

1" RUN-102" SWIM00" LEAP-2Characteristics Cost: 26

Cost	Skill
5	Concealment 14-
7	Deduction 15-
3	Demolitions 13-
3	Interrogation 12-
3	Custom Skill [Notes: 12-, PRE-Based]
3	Scholar
1	1) KS: American VIPs (2 Active Points) 11-
1	2) KS: Animal Behavior (2 Active Points) 11-
1	3) KS: Early Twentieth Century History (2 Active Points) 11-
1	4) KS: Famous Criminal Cases (2 Active Points) 11-
1	5) KS: Human Anatomy (2 Active Points) 11-
1	6) KS: Jewish Customs (2 Active Points) 11-
1	7) KS: Literature (2 Active Points) 11-
2	8) KS: New York Criminals (3 Active Points) 12-
2	9) KS: New York Penal Code (3 Active Points) 12-
2	10) KS: Obscure Vocabulary (3 Active Points) 12-
1	11) KS: Psychology (2 Active Points) 11-
4	PS: Detective 13-
2	SS: Chemistry 11-
2	SS: Physics 11-
3	Sleight Of Hand 11-
3	Streetwise 12-
2	WF: Small Arms

Skills Cost: 54

Cost	Perk
12	Contact: New York City Police Commissioner (Contact has access to major institutions, Contact has significant Contacts of his own, Contact has very useful Skills or resources, Contact is slavishly loyal to character) 14-
6	Contact: New York State Supreme Court Judge Irving Rose (Contact has access to major institutions, Contact has significant Contacts of his own, Contact has useful Skills or resources, Good relationship with Contact) 11-
10	Follower
2	Fringe Benefit: Local Police Powers
3	Reputation: Brilliant Detective, in New York City (A small to medium sized group) 11-, +3/+3d6

Perks Cost: 33

Cost	Talent
5	Eidetic Memory

Talents Cost: 5

Val	Disadvantages
10	Psychological Limitation: Vengeful (Uncommon, Strong)
20	Psychological Limitation: Obsessed with Loss of Legs (Very Common, Strong)
20	Physical Limitation: No Legs (Frequently, Fully Impairing)
10	Hunted: Criminals 8- (Less Pow, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Harshly Punish)
15	Hunted: Sergeant Simmonds 14- (As Pow, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Watching)

Disadvantage Points: 75

Base Points: 75Experience Required: 0Total Experience Available: 0Experience Unspent: 0Total Character Cost: 118

Height: 1.22 m	Hair: Gray
Weight: 50.00 kg	Eyes: Yellowish

Appearance: Inspector Allhoff looked ten years older than he actually was, with a yellow, seamed face and yellowish eyes. He had a corvine nose and gray hair. Leather caps covered the short stumps of his legs, and he usually dressed sloppily in unwashed clothing. His apartment/office was invariably filthy.Personality: Allhoff, never a likable man, was thoroughly warped by the loss of his legs, which he blamed entirely on Battersly. He lived in a state of nearly perpetual anger, punctuated solely by savage satisfaction at proving himself smarter than anyone else around him by solving difficult cases. If a visitor somehow managed to avoid making any remarks that could be remotely taken as an insult to Allhoff's crippled condition, he would invariably bring up the subject himself.

 

A stubborn, vindictive man, Allhoff refused to take any steps to ameliorate his suffering, refusing wheelchairs, artificial legs, and the opportunity to live in a handicapped-accessible building. He especially delighted in setting up scenarios in which Batttersly would believe that he would finally be redeemed, only to pull the rug out from under his assistant.

 

Surprisingly for his time period, Allhoff was remarkably unprejudiced against Jews and other minorities, and they respected him for this.

Quote:"Feelings, Sergeant? Well, I haven't any below the knees. Does that answer your question?"Background: Inspector Allhoff (given name unrevealed in the stories I have read) joined the New York City Police Department sometime before World War One. A brilliant if arrogant and conceited man, he rose through the ranks to Deputy Inspector. Then, on May 13, 1935, it all came crashing down.

 

The police received information that two notorious gangsters were holed up in a building with a Tommy-gunner watching the front door. Allhoff ordered a rookie cop, John Battersly, to go in the back way and take out the gunner, while he himself would lead the assault from the front.

 

Battersly got in, but panicked and froze, with the result being that whenAllhoff burst in, he was greeted by a spray of bullets to the legs. Gangrene set in, and the legs were amputated.

 

The Commissioner decided that Allhoff's brain was too valuable to lose, and arranged by creative accounting to have the crippled man still draw an inspector's salary. Allhoff moved into a slum tenement across from police HQ, (just down the block from Noonan's saloon,) and demanded Battersly as his assistant. Sergeant Simmonds, who'd joined the force with Allhoff, was assigned to do their paperwork and keep the two from killing each other, a thankless job.

Powers/Tactics: Inspector Allhoff was a brilliant man, widely-read, with an elephantine memory. He was also given to wild (and invariably correct) "hunches" about cases.

 

Alhoff's favorite tactic was to call an assortment of suspects to his office and then bully/trick the real killer into giving him/herself away. He kept two loaded .38 pistols in his desk for emergencies, but seldom had to use them, thanks to his clever set-ups.

Campaign Use: (First Appearance: "Footprints on a Brain", Dime Detective Magazine, July 1938)

 

Inspector Allhoff is a prime example of the "flawed detective" subgenre common in series mystery. Brilliant, but with a weakness that requires him to rely on assistance from others. Sadly, he's not gracious about this need. If for some reason the player characters lack their own detective, the police would be happy to refer them to the crippled man (especially if the case is so bizarre as to be unbelievable.) He'd also make a nasty rival for a player character detective. The inspector is a good way to lend some heft to a Hunted by Police.

 

You'll note that Allhoff has a bunch of unspent points. Beef up his Knowledge Skills to match your campaign.

 

Inspector Allhoff can be moved to any other large American city of the time period with a suitable change in localized skills. He's a little harder to move in time; his backstory becomes more and more unlikely as it's moved closer to the present. But his personality and loss of legs could be used for a police detective crippled by a superhero's carelessness.

 

_Important People_

 

John Battersly: A rookie police officer in 1935, he was tall strong and handsome, but not terribly bright. He lived with a crushing guilt complex about Allhoff's crippling, and accpted the older man's abuse as his rightful (if deeply resented) due. Battersly was an expert dancer and soccer player, hobbies Allhoff delighted in excorciating him for. He had a frail mother in Indiana that he never got to see.

 

Sergeant Simmonds: A career police officer, he stalled out at Sergeant while Allhoff continued to rise. A man of little imagination and poor financial judgement, Simmonds had to stay with his thankless job to keep his pension. His wife and two children depended on it.

 

_Plot Seeds_

 

"Substitute Scratching Posts": Battersly took one too many blows to the head in the latest case, and the player characters are tricked or ordered to fill in for the hapless officer. Inspector Allhoff is especially peevish for lack of his favorite kicktoy.

 

"Death to Allhoff": Allhoff sent a particularly well-connected mobster up the river last month, and his gang has vowed to kill the inspector. They're being unusually determined, and so the player characters are called in as reinforcements. Can they find the hitmen before Allhoff convinces the player characters it's okay to let him die?

 

"To Hell with Concept Integrity": The player characters find a way to restore Inspector Allhoff's legs. Will they find a way to make him let them use it?

 

Thoughts, questions, comments?SKJAM!

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Character: Inspector Allhoff (Identity Crisis tie-in)

 

Sounds like a character that just about anyone with a shred of deceny would despise even as he admires his competence. Does he have any peronally redeeming factors at all?

 

I can actually see him in svereal different types of camapigns. He'd be great as the nasty, arrogant brains behind a stong but dense super, for example. And a character construced along those line would make a very interesting crime lord in the tradition of Professor Moriarty, Roderick Thorne and the Kingpin.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Character: Inspector Allhoff (Identity Crisis tie-in)

 

Sounds like a character that just about anyone with a shred of deceny would despise even as he admires his competence. Does he have any peronally redeeming factors at all?

 

Refreshing lack of racism and anti-semitism for a 1930s pulp character, and that's about it.