The Unusual Suspects: Joseph Mutsinzi

As I write this we are well underway with the campaign proper but I still have three more preludes to present (for that matter I’m still down one final character sheet). But for now let’s look at the outsider of the group, the blunt instrument among spies: the fallen Guardian and Saboteur known as:

Joseph Mutsinzi

The Angel had a seemingly simple task: protect a Hutu soldier known as the Lion Tamer until the appointed time for his death. The difficulty came from the timing. It was the spring of 1994, during the height of the Rwandan genocide. And the Lion Tamer was elbow deep in conducting the slaughter.

Leading a force of child soldiers, the Lion Tamer brutally slaughtered hundreds, perhaps thousands of Tutsi. Joseph Mutsinzi was 14-year-old boy, one of his warriors, and the Angel’s Cover.

That ended the day his team moved to slaughter an entire school. Something about the murders caused Joseph to snap. As he approached a young girl huddled in a bathroom, he questioned the God-Machine for the first time. He asked what this slaughter was worth. He made a decision. Then he Fell.

The Lion Tamer never really understood what happened, never appreciated the irony as a lion covered in heavy gold fur pounced down on him as he barked orders to his young charges. As mechanical jaws crushed his windpipe, the man’s mind tried to understand where young Joseph had gone.

After the murder, Joseph didn’t stick around to see who the God-Machine sent to find out what happened. He had Fallen. The Lion Tamer had died before his appointed time. The Destroyer sent to eliminate him would have no target except perhaps the new demon. So he fled.

Decades later Joseph still clings to his original Cover. Now living as a janitor in Seattle, few know much about his past and most of his coworkers understand not to ask.

The following description comes paraphrased from the player Zach:

Joseph appears to be a quiet man with dark chocolate skin from bald crown to his scarred calloused hands. His face has known hunger, worn thin beneath the new layers of fat. Wrinkles creep along his face, bracketing his eyes but avoiding his rare smile.

Massive and powerful, he moves slowly with a weariness that shows in his slumped shoulders and steady shuffle. He slouches about his tasks, showing no relish in his job but merely a competency and willingness to perform whatever work needs to be done. Indeed, he looks like a man whom fate saw had a heavy burden, and piled a mountain on top of his already heavy load.

The one exception are his eyes. They watch everything, observing habits, gauging the innumerable methods to take down his chosen quarry, waiting for weaknesses to show themselves. Those that meet his eyes quickly break contact, shaken and startled to see a predator in what was believed to be prey.

Few pay attention to him as he moves from work to sleep and sleep to work. A pair of cats provide him companionship. Recently he ran into a fellow soldier from those days, a man named Yves Magambo. They’ve shared some of their experiences and talked about why they did the horrible things they did so long ago.

But he’s slipped up a few times. An ambitious janitor spotted him using his hidden strength to shift a dumpster by himself. Now Bob keeps a wary eye on him. A gang of freshmen saw some flaw in his cover. Now they think he’s something other than human. Luckily not only are they out of their depth but they believe him a magical creation: a golem, a zombie, or some Frankenstein creation. So they look for some sort of master.

But Joseph is a loner. Though he works with the local Agencies from time to time, the arrangement is purely freelance. A fellow Saboteur called Accabish feeds him intel every so often. He focuses on the masters behind the God-Machine’s schemes: handlers, cult leaders, politicians. Those who pull the strings and think themselves safe are his targets, especially those who work to foment violence.

Despite the vehemence he directs to his targets, his feelings to the God-Machine are less heated. It should stay out of the lives of mortals. These limited creatures are to be pitied and helped, blind to the larger world around them.

But his path seems to expand his mission to more and more targets. Slowly he is coming to realize that the leaders are not always the worst part of the group and he finds his actions growing more and more aggressive in destruction.

Recently he was contacted by an Agency known as the Wallbreakers. They intend to seize Infrastructure installed in the Registrar’s office at the University of Washington. But first they need to destroy the Angel protecting it. He’s agreed to help and has begun looking for possible weaknesses.

His current project however revolves about the deaths of several former university students last year. Supposedly they were victims of animal attacks but he’s seen enough “animal attacks” to remain suspicious. Three bodies were found but four people went missing. That smells of the God-Machine. Last week a report of a similar attack in Eastlake reached him. After some initial searching in the storm drains, he referred the situation to Ping Wu, a demon in the Seattle Linchpins.

Though the character is unaware of it, Joseph has the Surveilled Condition. It is not tied to the God-Machine though. An Exile, the Destroyer whose mission he ruined, is hunting him still hoping to complete his mission.