Character: Captain Lewis Haven.

Character reference: Captain Lewis Haven.

History.
Lewis Haven had plans for a fairly normal life. He was born in London to family of moderate wealth. His father was a successful printer and bookmaker who taught him a love for reading at an early age. As a young man he was accepted to Cambridge where he focused on language and history.

It would be the second Boer war that would turn his life upside down. Near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign the empire found itself involved in a prolonged war in Africa. Lewis was called to serve and although it interrupted his education he went without complaint. . Despite having been up till that point is his life a fairly mild man with no inclination towards violence Lewis served with distinction proving to be very level headed in combat. He made officer in less than a year and continued to climb the ranks. Due to his education and love for language it was discovered that he could pick up foreign dialects quickly and as such he was assigned to and then eventually made captain of one of the feared Nepalese-English Kukri, light infantry units.

But the Boer war would prove an ugly conflict and few soldiers made it out unscathed. Clockwork and steam-power weaponry had advanced considerably in recent years and the deadlocked conflict proved an excellent opportunity to experiment with new designs inflicting mass casualties on both sides.
As the third year of the war came to a close Lewis’s unit was involved in a large effort targeting a heavily fortified enemy base nicknamed “Trafalgar square” by the English. His Unit was tasked with passing through a thick expanse of jungle and attacking the base from behind, while other units attacked from the front. They left for the target at night, two days ahead of the rest of the force and vanished completely. Lewis’s unit never arrived at their target, the attack was a failure as a result, and for over a month no one heard from Lewis or his men. All were presumed dead.
Then a little over a month later Captain Lewis Haven emerged from the jungle alone. He seemed to be in shock bordering on delirium. He was placed under watch at the main field hospital where numerous efforts were made to debrief him by both doctors and officers. His reports were vague but he claimed his unit encountered a “monster” in the jungle: a massive mechanical lion that was as intelligent as human being. In stories that sounded like mad ravings he told of how it had stalked and killed over a hundred men in less than two days, but he gave no explanation as to how he had survived or where he had been all this time. Initially the army considered whether it might be some new enemy super-weapon. Clockwork animals where known to exist but only as rough approximation of pets, little more than toys. No construct had ever been made with the intelligence or capabilities he was describing. Yet, this had been a war that had seen many new weapons enter the battlefield. It wasn’t until, in one of his more lucid moments, Lewis described seeing it pull a soldier down from the low branches of tree while he hid nearby and noticing that on one shoulder it had an inscription of a serial number written in English letters and beneath it a small but noticeable union jack, that his tales were dismissed entirely.
Overnight the official story became that his unit must have run into combat. He had abandoned them and then fabricated the creature as a means of covering up for his cowardice. Not interested in giving his ridicules tales the forum of a full court-martial, Lewis was quietly dismissed and shipped back to England in disgrace.

Physical Description.
He is 5’10 with dark brown hair and green eyes. He is wiry-muscular but thin, his face especially seems hallowed out, typical of someone who has spent a long time in combat. His posture and gait are obviously that of a military officer. He has a very hardened, almost feral look that would be disconcerting or intimidating to anyone not accustomed to violence or danger.

As though he is still on the battlefield he carries everything he needs on his person. His clothes are beige and whites. They are tattered and wrinkled having been worn for a while yet everything is tucked in and buttoned neatly as though he is still wearing a uniform. He is wearing military boots which like his clothes are very worn but have been polished recently. He is wearing a backpack and a long trench type coat mostly to hide his various weaponry. Anyone who examines him closely will notice various signs of exotic travels intermixed in his possessions. Many of these are either gifts from his mostly Nepalese unit or souvenirs from Africa: they include a painted bone necklace, an ivory pipe carved in the shape of an elephants head, a pistol with a very decorated ebony handle, and a large ornate Kukri knife.

In a leather case, over his back he wears a very large rifle. It is an unusual steam-powered gun that fires a very large round, the equivalent of an Elephant gun. Even while covered this gun is very long and would stand out in public. If fired it would make an enormously loud noise easily hearable by anyone even remotely nearby.

Mannerisms.
Despite having a cultured English accent there is something about him that makes people think of exotic places, war drums, or the smell of strange spices. After several years of guerilla combat he has an almost supernatural ability to move silently and disappear. He still believes and acts as though he is in jungle combat, although he is also aware of his actual surroundings and able to respond to them normally, blending the two mentally even when that makes no sense. He often sees and converses with a Hallucination of his former second in command a Nepalese man named Sanjay. Sanjay acts as his voice of reason, trying to talk him out of extreme behavior and will recommend against violence unless Lewis is actually being threatened. At times when Lewis is calm Sanjay will also try to inform Lewis that neither he, nor any of the other hallucinations are real. Lewis may also see other members of his old unit either as though they are still under his command or as walking corpses although these hallucinations rarely speak to him. He will also imagine the lion which represents all his fears and is more likely to appear the more emotional, fatigued, or stressed Lewis is. The lion is usually not seen directly or up close. He is more likely to see it just as it vanishes behind something, a feint glimpse of it in the distance, or indirectly in the form of tracks, things shredded by claws, sounds etc. The lion is also the one exception to his being aware of his actual surroundings and while being distracted by the lion he might not be aware of where he’s at or what’s around him. For example he might accidently injure a civilian if he thought the lion was in front of them, had just killed them, or was them.
Lewis has ten rounds on him for his heavy rifle, it is a custom 67. Caliber solid steel round and more cannot be found. Because it’s the only weapon he as any confidence will stop the lion he is reluctant to use them on anything else, and if down to his last round the situation would have to be incredibly dire for him to fire it at anything other than what he believes is a perfect shot at the lion.

He will conceal his weapons in public but will not willingly part with them, especially his rifle. He shows extreme symptoms of PTSD and any fast movements or loud noises may result in a violent reaction. He is not a large man but as a trained soldier of an elite force he would be physically dangerous to a normal person. He is capable with every weapon his carries and would be with most weapons a soldier might have reasonably encountered.

Beneath an unstable mind Lewis is still very intelligent and interested in academic things such as books, historical artifacts or landmarks, dialects, or languages. These things grab his attention and the more he engages with them the more “normal” he acts, falling back to the way he was before the war. When these distractions are not a danger to him Sanjay will try to direct him to them. Whereas Lewis is obsessed with learning more about the lion, Sanjay just wants him to recover and begin living a normal life.