IN> Jeff Cooper, Soldier of God

[Royce Day]

Name: Jeff Cooper, AKA The Sand Guy

Appearance: An aging ex-hippy with a ponytail, dressed in cut off shorts and
usually carrying a spade in his hand.

Corporeal Forces 2: Strength 3, Agility 5

Ethereal Forces 2: Intelligence 4, Precision 4

Celestial Forces 2: Will 3, Perception 5

Skills: Artist (Sand Sculpture)/6, Detect Lies/3, Professional Skill
(surfboard manufacture)/3, Area Knowledge (Ocean City, MD)/5, Knowledge
Skill (Bible Scripture)/3.

Songs: Healing (Corporeal)/1

Background: The early 70's could politely be described as a hangover from
the party that was the 60's.  Jeff was just one of the many victims of it,
finding himself estranged from his family and dead-ended at a cheap beach
resort on Maryland's Eastern Shore, panhandling for food and enough money to
buy another tab of LSD or a ounce of Mary Jane.

His best scam was to do elaborate beach sculptures every evening on the
beach, right in front of the boardwalk where the light was the best.  It
usually got him enough money to get through the next day, or at least enough
to get his next hit, and the cops were less likely to bother him.
Eventually he started getting good at it, and then *very* good at it.  A lot
of times he went for a Christian theme, Jesus on the cross, or the Nativity,
not because he was religious (he only saw God when he took a hit of the good
stuff), but because there was a whole lot of Bible thumpers on this side of
the Chesapeake who were willing to chuck in some extra coin if they thought
he was doing God's work.

And one fine early morning, as he was counting out the change in his tip
bucket, a fellow beach bum with dreads like a Rasta sat beside him and
started talking about God.  Not the vague, distant God of Jeff's childhood,
but the Real Thing, Man.  The Creator, the guy who Made the UNIVERSE, Man!
How cool was that?  And angels were for real too.  Demons as well, but if
you were smart and careful they weren't so much of a problem.

And Jeff couldn't have told you why he kept listening to the man, who kept
coming by night after night, but he did follow the fella's one suggestion to
read the Bible to get more material for his work.  And the more he read, the
more he starting thinking about where he was, and what he was doing, and how
if he did it right, maybe folks might learn a little more about what a cool
guy God was, and how they should listen to his Symphony a little more
closely than they usually did.

Eventually he cleaned up his act, got off the dope, found a decent if not
great job at Ron Jon's Surf Shop to hold him over between the tourist
seasons, and became something of a local fixture.  He's been doing sand
sculptures for over thirty years now, and people bring their *grandkids* to
see his work nowadays.  And hey, if they get a little bit of God's word from
looking at his sculptures and reading the hand lettered placards he puts
out, that's cool too.

Jeff still has one regret though.  He sure wishes he'd thought to ask that
fella's name.

Campaign Uses: Jeff is Soldier, but he's no fighter.  Angels encountering
him will however, find him a useful source of information about Ocean City.
He's been around long enough that everybody knows him (even if it's just as
"The Sand Guy"), and he knows practically everybody.  OC isn't exactly a
hotbed of demonic activity, but it's a fairly active hunting ground for Lust
servitors around Spring Break, and Gluttony in general around tourist season
(try some Boardwalk Fries from the original shop though, and pick up a box
of saltwater taffy too.)

NOTE: The Sand Guy is a real person, and a real fixture in Ocean City (if
heavily fictionalized here).  And yeah, he's been doing his sculptures every
night, every summer, ever since I was a wee lad. As far as I know, he still
does.

-Royce in MD