Creepy loner who takes his obsession with gory horror movies a little too far…

Leroy Reed in His Own Words:
Heh. You wanna see my collection? Well, sure. Here’s my address. Come by after work sometime. I should warn you, though, I specialize in somewhat… graphic material. This isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you’re man enough, sure, come on by.
Dawn of the Dead? Psh. Pansy stuff. No, I mean the real thing. Y’know, the ones those jerks in Britain banned back in the ’80s? “Video nasties”? Yeah, that stuff.
I’ve got one video… Well, maybe if you show you can take it, I’ll show it to you.
You’ve heard the stories about snuff films? Like, Faces of Death? Flower of Flesh and Blood? Yeah, I know those aren’t real, I’m not stupid.
Well, I’ve got this one film. It’s this old 8mm reel, copy of a copy of a copy etc. The star’s Charles Manson, and he’s doing this stuff to this girl. It’s the real thing. I’ve been reading up, and you know, there were stories that Manson made a snuff film. It’s just incredible to watch, the stuff he does, it’s all, like, ritualistic, you know? I just get this high from watching it, it’s so awesome. I mean, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.
What’re you talking about? Look, I’m just teasing ya, I’m sure it’s a fake, okay? Just trying to see if you had the cajones to watch some of the stuff I’m talking about, is all. I get off work at seven, take the train home-so, see you at eight?

Personality: Introverted, creepy, even psychopathic. Leroy Reed keeps to himself and doesn’t talk to others more than he has to. When he does talk, his speech betrays a lack of empathy or understanding of others, and an unhealthy interest in the macabre. Leroy would probably have been a serial killer if he had the guts.
Appearance: Unkempt, overweight, and just barely within Walmart dress code. He usually sports stubble, and he does not wash nearly frequently enough. His hair is black, curly, and long.
Obsession: Power, and in particular the power of life and death.
Fear Passion: (Helplessness) Losing his current position at Walmart, where he works eight hour shifts watching security camera feeds. Leroy does not make a great employee under the best of circumstances, and he knows how hard it would be for him to find new employment at all, let alone the sort of easy work he currently enjoys.
Rage Passion: People who call him a loser. He is a loser, he knows it, and he doesn’t like to be reminded of it. However, he is more likely to do something underhanded like slashing their tires than to confront them directly.
Noble Passion: First amendment rights. Leroy believes that everyone should have the right to view movies as disturbing as they want them to be, and he even sends checks to the ACLU once in a while.

Wound Points: 50

BODY: 50 Overweight
General Athletics 15%, Go Without Sleep 40%, Struggle 15%
SPEED: 40 Flabby
Dodge 15%, Driving 25%, Initiative 20%
MIND: 60 Underhanded
Conceal 20%, General Education 15%, Notice 20%, Horror Lore 40%, Televideo Equipment Operation 40%
SOUL: 60 Voyeuristic
Charm 15%, Lying 35%, Magick (Thanatoscopy) 40%, Write Splatterpunk 5%

Magick (Thanatoscopy): See the section at the end of this document for information on Thanatoscopy. Leroy has possession of the minor films Snuff, the Faces of Death series, and the Guinea Pig series, as well as a collection of memorabilia and props from the movies. He has recently acquired possession of a significant film, an untitled film reel of a ritualistic murder carried out by the Manson cult in 1969. The film depicts Manson brutally torturing and killing an unidentified female victim, and is one of the series of snuff films described here.

Violence 2H 0F
Unnatural 1H 3F
Helplessness 0H 0F
Isolation 0H 0F
Self 0H 0F

Inventory: The uniform of a Walmart security officer; a wallet with $20, credit card, monthly MBTA pass, driver’s license, and house key.
Possessions: A job at a Walmart watching a bank of security cameras. A small, low-rent appartment filled with videos. Most of these are gory but otherwise unexceptional horror flicks-”video nasties.” An old but high-quality and quite large television set and DVD and VCR, as well as some basic televideo equipment including an ancient 8mm projector and screen. Set in a place of honor on the TV stand are Leroy’s minor films. His significant film is hidden beneath a floorboard, in a plastic bag sealed to prevent water damage. Stacked on one of the bookshelves not devoted to B-grade horror films are a pile of splatterpunk stories he has written, all of them truly terrible-they would be funny if they weren’t deathly serious-along with a pile of rejection letters from various horror magazines. Leroy has about $4,000 worth of credit card debt and no other significant assets.

Using Leroy Reed:
Leroy is best used as a minor villain. The most obvious possibility is that he either has some item or information the PCs want, or the PCs have some item or information that he wants. He is always looking for things to add to his disturbing collection, or for new pieces of information about serial killers, horror films, and his other fixations. If the PCs encounter a serial killer and he learns of it, he will want to know everything about it. If the PCs have props from a snuff film, or even just a gory horror flick, he will want them. If the PCs were actors in a horror film, well, they are in real trouble. And if the PCs thwart him in anyway-refuse to tell him about the serial killer, decline to sell or give him the prop, etc.-then he will hold a grudge.
His retaliation will be on the order of the annoying or the expensive but not the actually dangerous, and he will act in a fashion that does not expose him to any risk: slashing their tires, spreading rumors about them online, writing their phone numbers on bathroom walls. Confronted in person he denies everything; threatened he breaks down, complete with pants-wetting; turn your back on him again and he does it again. The four easiest ways to stop him: collect evidence you can use to blackmail him or get him arrested; trade him a prop, piece of memorabilia, or weird bit of serial killer lore to get him to stop; scare the pants off him; or kill him. The third option should require a matched or critical success on Intimidation, a strong success on Intimidation and showing a lethal weapon like a firearm, or seriously beating the crap out of him. If he does not believe that you will really, seriously hurt or kill him if he crosses you again, then he will keep up his actions.
And if Leroy decides he likes you… Well, the guy fits the psychological profile for a stalker.

Thanatoscopy:
Thanatoscopists gain power by watching death-specifically, films of death, of people being killed for the purpose of having the films of those deaths distributed-so-called “snuff films.” They are quite rare-about as rare as the films themselves. In person they tend to be a mixture of the frightening and the pathetic-losers who obsess over depictions of crimes they are unable or unwilling to commit, and who gain the power to emulate what they see.
Like Thanatomancers, Thanatoscopists tend to be sick, even evil bastards. Although exceptions may exist, the nature of the school requires a Thanatoscopist to have an obsession with the commission of murder, which does not usually attract pleasant individuals. Most, however, are not so much dangerous as disturbing, although they may pretend otherwise to themselves.

Snuff Films:
For the purpose of this school, a minor snuff film is defined as a film created for the purpose of entertainment and with the intent to be distributed, and which has been widely reported or described as depicting the actual death of a human being, but does not. Examples include the Faces of Death and Guinea Pig series and the film Snuff.
A significant snuff film is defined as a film created for the purpose of entertainment and with the intent to be distributed, and which does depict the actual death of a human being. A film that depicts an unintentional or unexpected death, such as the Zapruder film, does not count. Neither does a film that was not made with the intent of distributing it, such as the various rumored videos of serial killers’ handiwork. Nor does a film that was made with some purpose other than titillation or entertainment work, such as the videos of executions distributed in Vietnam with the intent of deterring criminals. No real-life examples of this sort of film are known to exist; in game, see here.

Thantoscopy Blast Style: Thanatoscopy has no blast.
Get a Minor Charge: Rewatch a significant film, or watch a minor film for the first time.
Get a Significant Charge: Watch a significant film for the first time.
Get a Major Charge: Unknown at present. It has been suggested that making a snuff film would work, although the Thanatoscopist would obviously have to be behind rather than on the camera.
Taboo: A thanatoscopist loses all charges if he or she kills another human being. If the killing was done intentionally and deliberately, they lose all thanatoscopy abilities permanently: they have become what they formerly merely watched.
Random Magic Domain: A Thanatoscopist can work magic effecting unfulfilled desires, especially shameful or distasteful ones. It is very hard for a Thanatoscopist to create an effect that is not gory or disgusting; generally speaking, the cost should be doubled for an effect that does not involve blood and guts in some way.
Starting Charges: At the Global level, Thanatoscopists start with two minor charges and two corresponding minor videos. At the Cosmic level, Thanatoscopists start with four minor charges, four minor videos, and one significant video.

Note on Secret Desires:
Many Thanatoscopist effects rely on the target having secret or suppressed desires that they consider shameful or immoral. Now, it is possible that NPCs (or even NPCs) might not have such desires. However, a character like that is either a saint or a Nietzschean superman, and in either event they are really, obviously unusual. If the GM decides that a character has no secret desires of this sort, then the Dirty Secret and Hidden Desire effects have no effect; the charges are drained without any apparent result.

Minor Effects:

Dirty Secret
4 minor charges
You immediately learn a secret desire of the target’s that they consider shameful or immoral and therefore conceal. For example, you might learn that Larry the Baptist Minister reads magazines about kinky sex. The secret is something that, if revealed, causes a rank-2 Self stress check in the target. If the target has more than one such secret, the GM selects one.

Hidden Desire
2 minor charges
The next time the target falls asleep, they will have a dream in which they engage in an act they secretly desire but which they consider reprehensible or shameful. This causes a Self-4 stress check. By increasing the charge cost to 4 minor, this can be changed into a sudden vision of this act, causing the target to experience the stress check then and there.

Just a Film
1 minor charge
This can be triggered in response to any stress check other than Self. Triggering it takes no time. The rank of the targeted stress check is reduced by two. For an additional minor charge, this effect can be used on someone else.

Moral Panic
3 minor charges
For the next hour, the target of the effect becomes extremely concerned over a particular category of behavior selected by the caster that is widely regarded as inappropriate, shameful, or immoral; for example, extramarital sex, racism, gang violence, etc. During that period they will react aggressively and disproportionately against that behavior. Targets may elect to act normally in any single instance, but, if so, they are immediately subject to a rank-10 Self check. Although they are not subject to Self checks for uncharacteristic behavior during this time, they suffer them at the end of the period. For example, Mary has been effected with a Moral Panic regarding role-playing games. Her girlfriend Sue mentions that she is trying to “think like” her new role in a play she is a part of. Mary immediately begins lambasting her for such activity, warning of the dire psychological consequences. She may even call up the play’s director and imply that Sue is mentally unstable in an effort to get Sue removed from the play, “for her own good.” After the hour is up, Mary is subject to a rank-2 Self check for what she considers her strange and absurd behavior.

X-Rated
1 minor charge
The next action or effect that deals damage-including hand-to-hand attacks, firearms attacks, and blasts-creates a particularly gory or disgusting wound or effect. This does not increase the damage, but it does increase the visual impact: the rank of any Violence check provoked by the attack increases by two. Any who witness the action but did not have to make a Violence check are subject to a rank-2 Violence stress check.

Significant Effects:

Cannibal Holocaust
1 significant
For the next hour, the target of this effect is unable to take into account moral or personal considerations when pursuing their obsession. They will gladly gun down innocent security guards to steal a major artifact. However, the effect does not compel them to violence; they do not care about the effect of their actions on others, but they will not necessarily perform an immoral act if a moral one is more likely to achieve their ends. Until the end of this effect, the subject makes no stress checks while engaged in the pursuit of their obsession. However, when the effect ends, they must immediately make all stress checks they previously skipped, potentially including Self checks for engaging in uncharacteristic behavior.

Major Effects:
Induce a hallucination of the target fulfilling hideous urges, causing a series of rank-10 stress checks and meanwhile making them oblivious to everything but what they are envisioning. Learn any shameful secret, anywhere. Cause someone to permanently lose all inhibitions regarding some desire.
Also, a major charge would allow a Thanatoscopist to step out from behind the TV screen and become what he desires to be. By expending a major charge and ritually murdering a human victim in the fashion described in the Thanatomancy school, a Thanatoscopist can abandon her former school and immediately become a Thanatomancer with a skill equal to her old Thanatoscopy skill. Their obsession skill changes to Magick (Thanatomancy), they permanently lose all Thanatoscopy skill, and they lose any charges gained from Thanatoscopy they have remaining.