Bio

Jack Rover

Chaldea Short Film Idea

Premise

Jack Rover uses his freedom of movement as Reeve of York to organize illegal religious gatherings, outwitting the high priest of Set.

Excerpt from The Dramatis Personae

Jack Rover is a ranger whom the duke’s former reeve appointed as deputy fifteen or twenty years ago, and nobody really knows where he came from or what he was doing before that. Though there are whispers and rumors aplenty about his supposedly dark past, he is well respected and the people of Yorkshire cheered his promotion to reeve eight years ago. He and his deputies travel all over the duchy keeping the duke’s peace and bringing the duke’s justice to those whose rank is too low to merit the attention of the court. Apophis also knows that he organizes worship services for all of the outlawed Egyptian deities (Ra, Osiris, Isis, Thoth, Anubis, Bast, etc.).

Jack Rover’s birth name is John Osgood, and he’s the 39-year-old son of the last High Priest of Osiris, who was put to death two months before Jack was born (during the purge of non-Set religions after the late emperor first took power). Jack’s mother and a number of other religious outlaws went into hiding in a secret stronghold deep in the Staincross Wolds, where they continued to practice their religion. When Jack was 12 the group decided to disband and quietly spread back out into the cities, hoping to find and connect any other pockets of heretic religious practice that might have survived the purge. A ranger in the group volunteered to be the go-between for all the groups; Jack became his apprentice and later took over for him. During the course of these duties, Jack met the duke’s former reeve, a closet Osiris worshiper, who made him a deputy reeve to give him a cover for his church organizing. Jack proved an unexpectedly good deputy, however, and when the reeve retired, he recommended that the duke appoint Jack to take his place.

See also the Apophis story.

What’s the Story?

Here’s an opportunity to create a story pretty much from scratch. Perhaps the story could directly relate to Jack’s history. Another idea is to create a story where Jack is pitted against Harry Bangor, the high priest of Set, who of course would be Jack’s natural nemeses. Perhaps Harry finds out someone is a heretic and Jack needs to rescue the heretic without getting discovered himself. For some reason I’m reminded of cold war spy stories set in Berlin.