Appearance

Apparel & Accessories

Litmus, a short and wiry man, wears two-inch elevator shoes to make him look of average height.

Mentality

Personal history

The unhappy orphan Gerry nearly got a college scholarship for athletics despite his institutionalized upbringing, but instead, he joined Cirque Du Soleil fresh out of high school. He did reasonably well until he took up the hobbies of drinking, pickpocketing, and getting arrested. As he entered his thirties, his formerly astounding dexterity began to wane, and his performing career ended.

After having lost all his sense of direction in his life, he found salvation with a rare sect of Charismatic Seventh-Day Pentecostal Scientologist Jehovah's Witnesses of Latter Day Saints. While hallucinating during hospitalized recovery after handling snakes poorly in a religious ritual with the small cult, Gerry was visited by Andy Warhol and and Allister Crowley, who slowly transformed into Jerry Garcia and Sam Kinison as they told him that God wanted him to help the innocent and punish evildoers. Despite the dubious nature of this vision, the thought of becoming a costumed vigilante struck a chord in Gerry's heart. At last he found a purpose and meaning for his otherwise wasted life.

Early in his crime-fighting career, Gerry took a job as a newspaper delivery boy, which gave him knowledge of the city (and criminal activity in it), as well as some money and free time to follow his crime investigations to their conclusions. His low-rent Metropolis apartment sported a map of the city, newspaper clippings of recent crimes on every wall, and old television sets always tuned to the news. There was also a 386 with NetZero loaded on it for research, and leftover pizza in the refrigerator.

It was everything a young vigilante could want until early 2009 when Litmus gave up his rent-controlled apartment (even though Daryl Hall still has his) after "acquiring" the responsibility of running a whole building.

THE MISSING YEARS: Late in 2002, Litmus had to go very deep into his investigation of a Czech mob boss in Little Moscow called, "Ten Mandarinka", (in English, "The Tangerine", so called for the orange-yellow jaundice of his skin due to a liver condition). This caused Litmus to decline invitations to investigations by the Trenchcoat Brigade and SAFEGUARD between 2003 and the present (Jan 2010), such as the 2003 cases Librarian vs the Cluemaster and People vs Seagurn Insurance, and more recently the 2009 cases: Launch Code, and The Lost World. And then there was the week of 12-18 August 2009 (a busy week to say the least): Right to the Bone, The "Ghost" Ship, SAFEGUARD and the "Safe House", The Journals of Dr. Hans Adelberg, Deep down and dark tiding, Unpleasant Meeting, Strangers in a Strange Land, Between a Kryptonian and a Hard Place, Directed Misdirection, Stalked in the Jungles of Madness, and House Calls. He let them all slip to focus on one massively tangled investigation.

It started with a local crime spree of a Czech gang called the mafie domácího oblečení (Housecoat Mafia), Litmus was told (by a guy hanging out of a window) that The Mandarinka was calling the shots. Litmus' research wandered a direction no other detective had considered, stumbling into discovering that The Mandarinka's lawyer had set up a nearly lawyer-proof false identity (Advokát Právník) for the ownership of a certain commercial building in Little Moscow, the Malá-budova, where dirty money was laundered.

Eventually, in 2008, Litmus gave a stack of documents and thumb drives to someone he could trust, the receptionist in the Mayor's office, Ms. Tomlin, secretly known as The Vigilante Receptionist, who made sure her contacts in the District Attorney's Office followed through on all the evidence.

It had taken five years to trace the convoluted money trails and gather the evidence of years of crimes, but by the end of the sixth year (2009) that evidence put most of the mafie domácího oblečení gang, The Mandarinka, and also his lawyer into prison.

Gerry discovered that leaving the Malá-budova without an owner / superintendent would have closed some local businesses and put several families out of their homes. This he could not allow. He had to take up the mantle of the mysterious building owner, "Advokát Právník", (whose made-up name means, "Lawyer Attorney" in Czech). He began to like the job because it allowed him to meet people on the right side of the law, and those who were being tempted but hadn't fallen.

TODAY: (January 2010) Little Moscow is no longer dominated by imported organized crime. It still has its local gangs - particularly the Metropolis Rogues and remnants of the Housecoat Mafia - but they have learned to be more like "unruly block friend groups" with enough local pride to dislike victimizing their neighbors, indulging in only a bit of contraband smuggling and petty larceny now and then. Anything more than that meets "Truth" and "Consequences", Litmus' rocket pistols.

AND THEN THIS WEEK, the Slovak soldier of fortune known as Jednorožec, The Unconquerable Unicorn came to Little Moscow looking for his old boss, The Mandarinka, who owes him money for "protecting" a certain smuggling operation.

Failures & Embarrassments

If he has to look back on it, Gerry may soon discover that Litmus had an unconscious bias that, "fighting crime in my neighborhood is more important than your neighborhood," or even worse, "Americans of Eastern European descent are the most important ones."

In his obsession to find justice for the Housecoat Mafia (once voted "most comfortably-dressed crime syndicate in Metropolis" by the Idiot King), Litmus put his crime-fighting allies aside to crack the huge case. But he has started to wonder ever since if he had made a mistake. Perhaps investing some time in his fellow crime-fighters might have given him more allies to solve the case sooner.

He may be learning this lesson too late after having alienated the other members of the Trenchcoat Brigade. He just wasn't there whenever they needed help for the last 6 years.

Hopefully he will start working on his little personality flaw.

Intellectual Characteristics

Litmus tries to think up a "Litmus Test" to get honest answers about other people's motivations. They might respond one way if selfish or if willing to use violence, yet respond differently if they are selfless or civilized.

Morality & Philosophy

Litmus has a comic-book-like view of the world as Good and Bad with no shades of grey in-between. Getting a job or starting your own business and obeying the Law are on the Good side. Pimping, prostitution, stealing, and even bullying are on the Bad side.

Today Litmus sometimes notices that when he is interrogating an informant beside a running woodchipper, that he is actually bullying them. It does not stop him from doing so to get the information he needs, but he feels bad about it afterward.

person.sexuality

Asexual due to obsessive crime fighting.

Known Languages

English, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Russian, and a little German

Personality

Personality Quirks

NOTES TO CHIP HOW TO PLAY LITMUS: Imitate Clint Eastwood. He is naturally quiet and reserved and judgey, very judgey. He might be up there on the Asperger Scale. Out of his mask, "his better face", he naturally keeps a poker face, but (like Sheldon) he is aware that showing friendly emotions is necessary for social life (and for interviewing a person for information), and he does an admittedly bad job of feigning emotions he is just not feeling at the moment when required by social convention.

He would like to honor his Polish heritage like The Unicorn does his Slovak heritage, but he doesn't know how.

Hygiene

Useful Links:

Trenchcoat Epiphany:

https://www.worldanvil.com/epic/Vgepruu87grL4Me4iKE0WEVRU0Rfu4

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tales-of-justice-kummer-wolfe/a/trenchcoat-epiphany-plot

Trenchcoat Brigade: the Animated Series:

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tales-of-justice-kummer-wolfe/t/trenchcoat-brigade3A-the-animated-series-timeline

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tales-of-justice-kummer-wolfe/a/litmus-person

DCH Rules Database:

https://www.dcheroesrpg.com/2019/07/flight.html?m=1

AP Distance Chart:

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tales-of-justice-kummer-wolfe/a/distance-law

The Unicorn:

https://www.writeups.org/unicorn-iron-man-marvel-comics-czech/

Mala Budova Building:

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/tales-of-justice-kummer-wolfe/a/mala-budova-landmark

Social

Current Residence

Little Moscow

Wealth & Financial state

The Malá-budova

It's got three businesses in the street level: a Polish pierogi shop, "Busha's Pierogi" (which also boasts various ethnic pastries for the breakfast crowd a combo Russian grocery ("Tolstoy's Store and Peas") and cafe/delicatessen ("Czarbucks" and a third space for a store that used to be a tourist T-shirt shop, ("Putin on the Ritz") which was a money laundering front. Litmus in his guise as Mr. Právník, is interviewing businesses to rent the space where the T-shirt store was. He sees the advantage of having a Bar, Nightclub, or Head Shop to gather intelligence on the city's underbelly, but he just hasn't found such a tenant that he can stand.

Second story is a combo of single-room businesses (1) real estate broker, Comrade's Cribs: "We'll Put you in a Home"; (2) accident lawyer, Ivan Antokolsky, Motorcycle Attorney: "If your bike takes a fall-ski, call Antokolsky"; (3) Polish Gypsy fortune teller, Babcia's Third Eye, whom Litmus can barely tolerate; and (4) Talking Duck phone and computer repair. And the back half of that floor is divided into residential apartments.

Third and fourth floors are also apartments. At least some are rent-controlled. One is a nice apartment which the former illicit owner kept for himself.

The basement holds the Superintendent's office, and a secret crime lab.