Dirty 20

Harvey Banks

The DM

• Play with Harvey

Harvey's Secret

He wrote a fantasy novel. An entire book. A rich, sprawling story filled with characters not unlike the ones at his table. It's deeply personal, full of metaphors for grief, loneliness, identity. His own inner world dressed in dragons and magic. He wrote it over the course of two years, late at night, hiding it behind campaign notes and old notebooks. It was his escape during the worst of his depression. When his wife left, when he lost his job, when he stopped recognizing his own reflection. And here’s the twist: He submitted it to a publisher. Just once. Quietly. Secretly. He never told anyone. Not even his best friend. And it got rejected. Not harshly, just a generic, polite “not the right fit.” But it crushed him. Because for the first time in a long time, he hoped for something. And when it didn’t happen, it reinforced every voice in his head telling him he wasn’t good enough.
Now, the manuscript sits buried in a drawer under his bed. He hasn’t touched it since. He tells himself it wasn’t that good anyway. But sometimes, when he’s describing a town or weaving lore for the campaign, bits of that book slip out. Names. Phrases. The bones of the story still live in the world he builds for his friends. Because even if it wasn’t “good enough” for a publisher, it’s still part of him. And the others?
They have no idea they’re playing in Harvey’s secret, unfinished dream.

Harvey’s wife of ten fucking years had left him for his boss, an insult so perfectly cruel it felt scripted. Her betrayal cracked something deep inside him, and the rest of his life collapsed like a bad Jenga tower.
The job slipped away, not with a bang but with a quiet email and a severance package that felt more like hush money. No job, no wife, no sense of direction. Just a dull, grey fog of depression that made even brushing his teeth feel like a chore.So he ended up back where it all started.Back in the old neighborhood where the mailboxes still leaned at odd angles and everyone whispered behind their smiles. Back in the creaky house with the peeling paint and the smell of dust baked into the walls. Back in his childhood bedroom, the posters of video game characters long since faded but never taken down.And worst of all, back in the shadow of the thing he thought he’d outgrown: that gnawing, low-grade feeling of not being good enough. Of never being enough. Not for his family, not for his friends, not even for himself.

Bowen Roth

The Paladin

• Play with Bowen

• Bram Solvane - Redemption Paladin

Bowen's Fears

Bowen had always been the kind of talented that made people stop and stare. It didn’t matter the instrument—guitar, piano, drums—he could play them all like he was born with them in his hands. When he sang, it was raw and gravel-laced, like whiskey poured over heartbreak. His voice didn’t just carry a tune—it carried weight. Stories. Lust. Pain. It had dropped jaws and panties in equal measure.In Silver Ridge, he was a goddamn legend. The local rockstar. The big fish with swagger and eyeliner, filling out garage shows and backyard parties like they were Madison Square Garden. So when high school ended, there was no question—he left to make it big. LA was calling. Stardom was inevitable.But LA didn’t care how many Battle of the Bands trophies you had back home. Out there, he was just another guy with long hair and a dream. Another voice lost in the static. Doors didn’t open. Labels didn’t call. And slowly, the shine wore off. He came back to Silver Ridge quieter, meaner, carrying the weight of a dream that didn’t survive the real world.Now, he teaches music at the same high school he once strutted through like a king. The students love him—he’s cool, in that "worn leather and too-many-cigarettes" kind of way—but Bowen can’t help feeling like he’s standing in the ruins of what could’ve been.He’s settled into his mediocrity like a man settling into a cage—resentful, restless, and barely holding it together. The music’s still in him, but now it comes out jagged, like a scream swallowed too long.

Atlas Hall

The Wizard

• Play with Atlas

• Erasmus Vale - Order of the Scribe Wizard

Atlas's Fear

He’s afraid he’s impossible to connect with.Not just misunderstood—unreachable. That the way he thinks, the way he speaks, the way he protects himself with rules and sarcasm and logic—makes him fundamentally incompatible with real intimacy. That he’s too much work to love. Too rigid to let anyone close, too cold to hold anyone’s attention, too emotionally stunted to give people what they actually need.He fears that by the time he figures out how to express what he feels, everyone will already be gone.That he’ll end up being the smartest guy at the table……and still the loneliest.So he keeps people at arm’s length. Corrects instead of comforts. Observes instead of engages. Because if someone really saw him—the need, the insecurity, the sharp, obsessive ache to be understood—they might pull away.And the truth is?He doesn’t know if he’d survive that.

Atlas Hall has always needed structure. Craved it, really. There was a comfort in rules, a quiet thrill in knowing the exact procedure, every loophole, every clause hidden in the fine print. Information was control, and Atlas clung to that control like a lifeline. He wasn’t the kind of guy who winged it. He was the kind who brought color-coded tabs to D&D night and corrected grammar in text messages.He liked to believe that being the most prepared made him indispensable. In reality, it just made him kind of unbearable.He never made it out of Silver Ridge—not for lack of intelligence, but maybe for lack of nerve. Or maybe it was easier to stay where he could be the smartest guy in the room. These days, he works as a barista at a painfully curated coffee shop with exposed brick walls, Edison bulbs, and a chalkboard menu that changes with the moon phases.He wears the uniform of a walking stereotype: thrifted cardigans, wire-frame glasses, vintage boots worn just enough to imply authenticity. He’s a hipster down to his soul, though he’d argue it’s “aesthetic minimalism.” A chronic sneer rests on his face like it’s been tattooed there, and he always looks vaguely disappointed in everything—the weather, the espresso machine, your life choices.Atlas walks through town like he’s performing competence, convinced that if he just plays the part hard enough, no one will notice the cracks. The truth is, he’s terrified someone will see through the façade—that under the curated playlists and know-it-all attitude, he’s still that anxious kid who thinks being right is the only way to matter.

Trick Duffy

The Artificer

• Play with Trick

• Rhys Calder - Artillerist Artificer

Trick's Secret

Trick can’t read very well. He's not illiterate, not totally. He knows enough to get by. Labels. Signs. Short texts. But long-form? Dense rules? Descriptions? Emotional letters?He struggles. Has since school.He covers it with jokes. Says he just hates “reading blocks of text,” or that it’s “all crunchy and boring anyway.” He memorizes his character sheet like it’s a script and relies on verbal storytelling to mask how little he actually reads during sessions.If someone tries to hand him lore dumps or written notes in-game, he finds an excuse to pass them off. Plays it cool. Says his character “wouldn’t care.” If a romantic interest sends his character a letter, he’ll make a joke—“Tell me what it says in bed.” Always laughing. Always dodging. But deep down?He’s ashamed.Not because he’s dumb—he’s not. Trick is sharp. Mechanical genius, emotionally intelligent, quick-thinking and instinctive. But something about school never clicked. Maybe it was undiagnosed dyslexia. Maybe it was being in and out of juvie. Maybe it was a system that gave up on him long before he ever had a chance to catch up.And now, as an adult, he’s convinced it’s too late.So he hides it because the people at that table, especially you, see him as capable. Clever. Brilliant, even.And if they knew? If they looked at him differently? He doesn’t know if he could handle it.

Patrick Duffy had never really left Silver Ridge. Not in any way that mattered. Sure, he’d drifted between dead-end jobs and county lock-up, but his boots never carried him far. Always the same streets. Same bars. Same trouble. He was the kind of guy who got in fights for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate—just a gut feeling, a spark of injustice, and a closed fist to follow. Most of the time, the people he threw punches at were two weight classes up and packing more muscle or more money, sometimes both.
He just couldn’t help himself. Trick had always hated bullies.
Which made his lifelong friendship with Clark one of those cosmic contradictions no one could quite explain. Oil and water, yet somehow bonded at the hip since elementary school. Maybe it was a shared history. Maybe it was loyalty born of survival. Or maybe Trick saw something in Clark the rest of them refused to acknowledge.