Category: Investigators

Michael “Big Mike” Collins – Dockworker

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A character illustration for the 1920’s era Call of the Cthulhu role-playing game setting. Perhaps his burly stature and experience in heavy lifting is needed by other investigators on their way to revealing ancient secrets or perhaps Big Mike has himself seen something he ought not to while unloading the barque Miskatonic after it’s recent explorational journey to the Antarctic.

Also part of my Through the Ages series of illustrations where a single character is depicted in several different settings.

Susan Crawford, a Dilettante

2015-06-04_2b

A character illustration for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting.

The wife to the filthy rich restaurant owner Robert Crawford, Susan has never had to worry about the things that ordinary people worry about – like money, standard of living or quality of food. The couple has been married for well over a decade now but they have not been blessed with children – something that continue to baffle the good townsfolk of Arkham City.

A regular visitor to pretty much any important(ish) social gathering, Susan also runs the Crawford Detective Agency from their own townhouse. The agency is nothing but a hobby to Susan – something to quench her thirst for puzzles, mysteries, the unknown and the occult. She takes only “weird” cases considering the mundane “photograph my cheating wife” -cases boring and not really interesting. Some cases have revolved around things that have drawn her further towards mysteries that seemingly point to a “world hidden from the plain eye” as she herself expresses things on her journal. She is verbally and literally quite talented and has written some details of her actual cases to be part of a series of short stories she has published in a fledgling literary magazine named Hidden that specializes in detective mysteries and weird fiction.

 

Amanda Halsey, Excavation Foreman

2015-07-04_3

A character illustration for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting.

Amanda Halsey is a rugged hands-on self-educated amateur archaeologist. She has never had any real interest in the academic aspect of treasure hunting but has instead spent a good number of her 35-year life on excavations around the world. Her expertise in “getting things done” is well known throughout the smallish community of archaeologists and expedition planners. She spends 8-9 months each year on some excavation site or another and 3-4 months in Arkham where she resides in her vast family home situated on West Washington Road along with her 6 siblings and their offspring.

Amanda is a no-nonsense kind of woman and good friends with a colleague Ruth Meckler among others. Ruth and Amanda get along so well that they nowadays team up when going to excavations. Today Amanda works mostly as a Excavation Foreman – telling excavators where to dig, getting the right people to do various tasks on site and organizing … well everything. She never fears getting her own hands dirty and gets a seemingly endless supply of energy from coffee which she drinks pretty much all the time.
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Amanda Halsey, Excavation Foreman by Kimmo Mäkinen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Cassandra Wade, an Actress

2015-07-02

A character illustration for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting (1920’s era obviously).

Miss Wade is a nation-wide celebrity due to her appearing in not one but three successful movies produced by Hollywood studios. She even performs a leading role in two of them. Currently she is “retired” … meaning that she has rejected movie parts offered to her recently, but probably jumps on the wagon if she is offered a “leading lady” role.

While in Arkham, she lives in 622 Brown Street in the so called Guardian Apartments complex occupying the most expensive 6-room loft apartment with her two maids and a butler. The location – while not the most wanted in town – is convenient for her since she spends long hours but a block away in the Manley Theatre premises (at 670 Gedney Street) where Arkham Amateur Theatre Company practises and performs. She both performs and teaches acting in the theatre company.

While somewhat flippant and flamboyant, miss Wade is also serious and passionate when it comes to acting and the performing arts. She has also mastered vocal talents in the form of mimicry and can deceptively easy mimic dozens of voices and accents as well as various natural sounds including common house pets and wild birds.

At the end of the day, however, she does like to party rough too. She knows her way around controlled substances and while not yet overly addicted, her relationship with alcohol is far from a healthy one – prohibition or not. Her presence is almost guaranteed whenever one of the important people in Arkham decides to throw a party.

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Cassandra Wade, an Actress by Kimmo Mäkinen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ruth Meckler, Intrepid Archaeologist

2015-06-30

A character illustration for Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting.

Ruth Meckler travels the world on missions funded by the Miskatonic University in Arkham. She started out as a helping hand years ago and has rapidly risen to a respectable archaeologist and explorer mostly due to her work in professor Arthur Connor‘s numerous successful expeditions to the Amazon basin. Her academic work includes several important and revealing papers on ancient South American belief systems.  Her doctoral thesis – while still unfinished – is named “The Origins of Religion in Neolithic Amazonian Cultures as Evidenced by Archaeological Findings” and is already widely debated in academic circles even prior to it’s publication.
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Ruth Meckler, Intrepid Archaeologist by Kimmo Mäkinen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jonathan Elmore, Private Investigator

 

2015-03-22

 

A character illustration for Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting. I suppose this illustration works for either the 1920’s and modern version of the setting.

Jonathan Elmore is a private investigator by profession. He has been snooping the streets of Arkham for over a decade and have seen his fair share of things no man should see. Elmore works alone but occasionally accompanies a few trusted men particularly when the job at hand is expected to be out of the ordinary in some way or another.

 

 

 

 

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Jonathan Elmore, Private Investigator by Kimmo Mäkinen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Robert Crawford

2013-01-23

An illustration for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting. Meant as a character for the 1920’s era.

Robert Crawford is a restaurant owner in Arkham – in a long line of restaurant owners. He is the current owner of the Crawford’s Restaurant, situated at the corner of Garrison and Armitage. The place has been there since the Civil War and ownership of the establishment has been firmly in family ever since the 17th century. The place is by far the most expensive place to get one’s belly full, but the food is exceptionally good – albeit the menu is archaic by modern standards and in dire need of modernization. Nothing much has changed in the restaurant in 200 years.

Robert Crawford is one of the richest men in town and although his restaurant is gathering patrons, it’s really no longer a very good source of income. But the family fortunes are vast and includes shares of many companies in Arkham, gold and property. His demeanor is that of a spoiled brat whose upbringing has been supportive of his family’s view of their own supremacy over the common folk. But his presence is striking and captivating and his manners are impeccable. On occasion his restaurant is used to throw parties in which alcoholic beverages are flowing freely – in spite of the ongoing Prohibition. There is little risk for the Crawford’s due to the family’s influence on city affairs. Robert is rather handsome in a rugged way and he is surprisingly eloquent, educated and gives out an aura of importance. He is flirtatious and openly suggestive even though he is happily married to Susan Crawford. In reality he is devoted to his wife and the flirtatious side to him is merely a facade.

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Robert Crawford by Kimmo Mäkinen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.