Chris Larabee

Age: 38

Born: 1897

 

Only son of career soldier Marcus and Brigitte Larabee, Chris grew up in Jerome, Arizona, befriending Buck Wilmington, who was often ostracized by the neighborhood children because of his mother's occupation.


Chris followed his father into the army at the outbreak of WWI, signing up with Buck and was assigned to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, called K Troop under the command of Captain Orin Travis. Chris served in France, achieving the rank of Lieutenant and participated in the Oise-Aisne Offensive, where he commanded Vin Tanner, Ezra Standish and eventually Nathan Jackson. They would eventually befriend mechanic Josiah Sanchez who was part of the Air Aero Corp, where Buck was assigned.

 

During this time, Chris meets Hank Conley through Orin and by extension is daughter. Despite Hank's objection to their courtship, Sarah and Chris fall in love. They become engage during the war and promise to marry after it is done. Chris also makes plans to adopt Vin Tanner after the war but the authorities discover Vin's true age and the boy is shipped back to the States following the Armistice without Chris's knowledge. Despite an exhaustive search, Chris was unable to find Vin and had no choice but to abandon the search.

 

After the war, Chris and Sarah were transferred to Fort Bliss, although Sarah wished to live closer to her father who resided in Santa Fe. When Marcus Larabee passed away in 1928 of cancer, the inheritance he leave Chris allows him to buy a ranch situated outside Albuquerque as a surprise. In 1930, two weeks before they are to move in permanently, Sarah and Adam are killed when a fire breaks out in their home on the base.

 

Hank blames Chris for their deaths and the two remain estrange until Hank's passing. Chris leaves the army and begins to spiral with only Buck keeping him from committing suicide. Eventually Buck is forced to step away, taking a job in California with Western Express. Chris is on his way to full blown alcoholism when his former commander, Orin Travis, now a Professor at the University of New Mexico and curator of its museum of antiquities, tracks him down in 1931 and hires him to retrieve an artefact, aware of Chris's interest in archaeology. Chris enlists members of K-Troop, including Buck, Ezra, Nathan, Vin and Josiah and embark on a new career.

 

By 1933, they have become successful relic hunters, not only for the university but for private collectors, allowing Chris and Buck to purchase the Darlin' Millie, a Fokker F20 plane. In 1934, realising they need a linguist, Orin Travis recommends JD Dunne to the team.

 

Chris drives an 1933 Oldsmobile


 


Buck Wilmington

Age: 36

Born: 1899

 

Buck Wilmington was born to Emily Wilmington, a working girl at the infamous Arizona house called 'Jennie's Place' in Jerome, and grew up on the premises, cared for by all the ladies of the establishment. It is assume that Buck's father was one of the miners in the area, though Emily was never able to tell him exactly. Despite this, Buck was raised well and Emily saw to it her son was given a good education. Unfortunately, he was often subjected to bullying and usually found himself alone until meeting Chris Larabee. Chris becomes his closest friend and a strong male influence in his life came from Chris's father, who was unfazed by the boy's parentage.

 

At the outbreak of the war, Buck who had loved the idea of flying, joined the Air Aero Corps when Chris is assigned to the cavalry. After they were shipped to France, Buck befriends the spiritual Josiah Sanchez, who is an army mechanic responsible for maintaining most of the vehicles in the flight corps. Eventually, it is Buck who introduces Josiah to Chris and K Troop. Buck becomes an ace in 1st Aero Squadron and participates in the St. Mihiel Offensive, the Aisne-Marne Defensive and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive Campaign.

 

Meanwhile he is designated a bigger threat by the fathers of France than the Kaiser.

 

Buck remains in the army after the war, as a pilot in the Army Air Service, until the post war reduction in funding forces Buck to seek work elsewhere. In 1930, he accepts a job as a pilot with Western Express after nursing Chris Larabee through the loss of his wife and son. Unfortunately, this does not last long and by the time the Great Depression arrives, Buck is flying crop dusters. He is the first person Chris reaches out to, following Orin Travis's proposal and together they enlist the rest of K Troop.


Within two years, they purchase an old Fokker F20 which becomes the transport of choice for their new venture. Buck christens the plane the 'Darlin' Millie' after his mother.

Buck rides a 1930 Triumph B204 Sport motorcycle.



Vin Tanner

Age: 28

Born: 1907

 

Vin Tanner was born in Galveston, Texas. His mother Adelaide was a textile worker at the Galveston Wharves. Vin never met his father and until the age of five was assumed to be illegitimate because his mother could offer no proof of marriage, although Tanner was not her maiden name. After contracting Typhus, Adelaide died and Vin is sent to St Mary's orphanage where he spends the next five years, suffering abuse at the hands of the nuns as well as the bullies who preyed on him.

 

In 1917, Vin runs away from the orphanage and enlists in the army. As it was at the time, army recruiters were paid quotas and were known to take boys as young as 12, without proof of age. Vin convinces the recruiter he is 12 when in actual fact he's only ten. Vin is shipped off to France, where he is assigned to K Troop. Chris Larabee upon sighting Vin was more than prepared to send him back to the States until witnessing the scars on the boy from his time in the orphanage. Chris lets him stay, assigning him to look after the horses.

 

During one of the engagements, Vin sees combat with a rifle and proves himself to be something of a prodigy as a sniper. It is Vin who seeks out Nathan Jackson to save the life of Ezra Standish when he is gravely injured in Oise-Aisne Offensive. Chris comes to care for the boy intensely and made plans to adopt him at the end of the war. However, Vin's true age is revealed following the Armistice and before Chris is able to put a stop to it, Vin is shipped back without his knowledge.

 

Escaping custody before he can be delivered back to an orphanage, Vin strays into the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and is found by Kojay, one of its tribal elders. Impressed by Vin's determination to survive on his own, Kojay convinces the elders to let Vin remain and raises Vin alongside his own son, Chanu. Kojay teaches Vin how to track like a Navajo tracker as well as learning the language.

 

When Vin turns eighteen, he leaves the Reservation and joins the Texas Rangers, as well as communicating with Chris Larabee to let his old friend know he is now safe. Vin's talent as a sharpshooter and is skills as a tracker, keep him with the Rangers until 1930 when the fallout from the Depression results in many Rangers joining the unemployed. To survive, Vin starts working as a ranch hand to make ends meet until Chris seeks him out and invites the sharpshooter on board as one of his new relic hunters.

Vin drives a 1930 GMC pickup truck.

 

 

 

 


 

Ezra Standish

Age: 35

Born: 1900

 

After Maude leaves her rich St Louis family to take up with what they considered a 'Yankee Carpetbagger' at eighteen, she is forever disowned and considered a bad seed. Unfortunately, the marriage lasts long enough for Maude to produce a child and bury her husband in circumstances, she claimed were too unsavory to be discussed. While unwilling to take Maude back, Ezra is given a home and Maude leaves him there, believing it was for the best.

 

Despite having a roof over his head, Ezra was never allowed to forget his place in the family, which was a notch over bastard. This continues until Maude returns home and after seeing how he is treated, takes Ezra with her when she leaves. She manages to enroll him in boarding school because he is too young for the life where he remains until he is thirteen, facing the same prejudices.

 

At thirteen, Maude pulls him out of school for good and after that, the two are inseparable with Ezra being fully initiated into the 'life'. Adoring his mother, Ezra is more than happy to accompany her on her cons, and they travel across the country from Charleston to New York, running cons and swindling helpless marks for money. Despite this dysfunctional upbringing, Maude insists he continue his education and Ezra spends a lot of time in hotel rooms, reading books on literature, history and philosophy.

 

When he is seventeen years old, Maude runs afoul of a mark with connections to the New York mob. After being cornered, Maude is on the verge of being killed when William 'Reddy' Griffin, the mobster, takes a liking to Ezra. Seeing the opportunity to save his mother, Ezra gives in to Griffin's desire for him sexually in exchange for Maude's life. The encounter, which is more of a rape, leaves Ezra emotionally devastated. Furious at his mother at leading him to this, Ezra runs away and join the army.

 

Assigned to K Troop, Ezra continues to run scams among his fellow soldiers, until Chris Larabee catches him in the act. Instead of sending him to the stockade, Chris uses Ezra's skills and appoints him the company's scrounger. With rations so poorly distributed amongst the enlisted, Chris charges Ezra to get them better supplies and keeps K troop from falling prey to starvation like the rest of the soldiers on the Western Front. During the Oise-Aisne Offensive, Ezra is treated by one of the 'Buffalo Soldiers' of the 92nd Regiment, a medic named Nathan Jackson. Nathan saves Ezra's life and the two become best friends, after Chris transfers Nathan to K Troop.

 

After the war, Ezra makes no effort to contact Maude and continues on his own path, working on Wall Street as a broker until the crash. The lean times forces him into the grifter life once more and a con gone bad lands him in jail. Chris Larabee tracks him down and manages to bail him out, offering Ezra a new career path. Ezra accepts and thrives in his new role as the Seven's procurer. He is also a secret investor in Paloma's, the Seven's favourite watering hole.


Ezra drives a 1930 Cadillac V-16


 

Nathan Jackson

Age: 36

Born: 1899

 

Like most African American families of the time, Nathan's family was one of the Exodusters who travelled north to Kansas and settled in the black colonies established in the state. After settling in Dunlap county, Nathan's father farmed sorghum after being allotted land via the Homestead Act. Nathan was raised in Graham County with his sister Rebecca, and despite Kansas not adopting any form of institutionalised segregation, the white population wasn't entirely welcoming. Despite this, however Nathan's childhood was relatively normal and peaceful.

 


When Nathan was sixteen years old, a chance encounter at a park with a white girl named Kathy Lowry, sparks a friendship that eventually becomes a romance. Although the two do their best to keep it secret, news eventually reaches Kathy's family and the result is predictably incendiary. Kathy is sent immediately away to boarding school, with Kathy's brothers and his friends cornering Nathan one night and beating him so badly, he is almost killed. Nathan's family home is vandalised and his father's crop is set alight.


Despite this, Nathan refuses to give up his affection for Kathy and manages to see her at the boarding school she was sent to in Oklahoma. Expecting to be welcomed, Kathy instead treated her relationship with Nathan as if it were a mistake and tells him she feels nothing for him any longer, and to leave her alone. Heartbroken, Nathan does not go home and instead enlists in the army. He is immediately assigned to the 92nd regiment and trained with the MOTC (Medical Officers Training Camp - Coloured) as a medic.

 

The 92nd, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, were one of the few regiments sent to the front and during the Oise-Aisne Offensive, Nathan is in the process of treating fallen members of his company on the battlefield, when he is dragged off by a scrawny, young boy wearing a cavalry uniform. Nathan finds Ezra Standish, who'd been part of the cavalry brigade of K-troop close to death and is pleasantly surprised when he is not faced with prejudice. Nathan manages to stabilise Ezra and accompanies him back to the field hospital where he is refused entry by staff until Orin Travis demands otherwise. After this, Nathan's presence in the hospital is ensured by Head Nurse Nettie Wells. Through Ezra, Nathan meets the rest of the K Troop and Chris Larabee asks him to join their company with Ezra's encouragement who claims he needs a straight arrow like Nathan to keep him honest.

 

Following the war, Nathan goes home to Topeka, where he works as a hospital attendant. Visiting the park where he first met Kathy, he encounters her again. Kathy pretends not to know him. Nathan continues working at the hospital until the Depression results in cuts to the nursing staff, with preference for such roles going to white workers. Nathan is allowed to stay but as a janitor. With no desire to end up on the breadlines, Nathan takes the job reluctantly until Chris Larabee tracks him down to join the rest of the seven in their new path.

 

Nathan drives a 1930 Hudson Essex

 


 

Josiah Sanchez

Age: 48

Born 1889

 

By the time Josiah was ten years old, he had seen much of the world, travelling with his missionary parents across the globe preaching the word of God. His father, Jonah, a fire and brimstone preacher was determined to instill Christian values into his family and save the heathen masses from themselves, in whatever land they travelled. While his father expected his children to behave the same, he was still fair and understanding, fostering in Josiah a genuine love for the priesthood. Josiah's mother Ester, was nowhere that certain but did nothing to discourage her son from choosing to follow in his father's footsteps.

 

At the age of ten, the family began their ministry in the Christian Community of Liyuantun. Local enmity was provoked when the a temple to the Jade Emperor was turned into a church, precipitating the Boxer Rebellion, where the natives turned on the foreigners. In their escape to the Legation Quarters, Ester was killed by the Boxers and the family grieved her lost while under siege for almost two months. During this time, Jonah grew to believe their lack of spiritual compliance was the reason God had forsaken them and caused Ester to die.

 

After leaving China, the family returned to Colorado but Josiah found himself in constant conflict with Jonah over his strict authoritarian behaviour. Suffering in particular was Hannah, who was starting to exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia, though at the time the condition had yet to be diagnosed. By the time Josiah was readying to leave for seminary school, Hannah had begun acting out and Jonah was convinced she had the 'devil' in her, taking more extreme measure to keep her under control.


Meanwhile, Josiah had met Emma Dubonnet, the daughter of a local baker and against his better judgement, begins a passionate affair with her. Despite sharing intimate relations, Josiah breaks off the relationship to leave for seminary school, only to discover Emma had killed herself that same night because she was pregnant. Grief stricken, Josiah punishes himself by abandoning God and joins the army, where he becomes a mechanic, eventually servicing the newly introduced airplanes.

 

During the war, he befriends Buck Wilmington and through Buck, meets Chris Larabee and the rest of K Troop. After the war, Josiah learns that her father had been near torturing his sister to remove the devil from her and takes charge of her care personally, working as a mechanic to keep her in a private sanitarium, where she is diagnosed with dementia praecox. HIs relationship with his father becomes estranged and they do not speak again.

 

Unfortunately, due to the Depression, Josiah is forced to take what work is available in order to keep Hannah in the sanitarium, instead of a state run institution. Thanks to Chris Larabee's invitation to join K Troop's new venture, this is no longer a problem.

 

Josiah drives a 1930 Buick Roadster

 

 


 

John Daniel 'JD' Dunne

Age: 20

Born: 1915

 

JD Dunne was born in 1915, six month before his father died in Europe. His mother Elizabeth Dunne, had no family to speak off and raised him alone, working as a maid in the big hotels in New York, while raising him in Hell's Kitchen. Despite their impoverished life, Eliza found friendship in the influx of immigrants coming from Europe and JD grew up with the neighborhood children, learning to speak several languages, including Italian, German and Russian. When he wasn't with them, he often spent his afternoons with Yuri Ivanova, an elderly academic who fled the Bolshevik revolution, having been a teacher of classical history which the new Soviet Russia had little patience for.

 

Yuri who lost his entire family in the Revolution, grows very attached to both Eliza and JD, and when he secures a teaching position in a private boarding school in Connecticut, recommends Eliza for the position of housekeeper. Eliza accepts when Yuri explains taking the appointment will also allow JD to attend classes with the other children. Not about to deny her son a first class education, Elizabeth accepts and all three leave New York soon after.

 

While allowed to attend classes, JD is ostracized by his classmates for being one of the servants and he spends most of his time with Yuri when he isn't helping his mother with her duties and working in the stables, which he rather loved. In the meantime, Yuri discovers JD has something of an eidetic memory and begins to teach him classical histories as well as ancient languages. With Yuri's aid, JD soon excels in his classes and is looked upon with promise by his teachers.

 

JD is 14 years old when Yuri passes away from a stroke. Despite his passing however, the school retains Eliza's services, having come to see her as a valuable member of the staff and JD continues to ace his studies, missing Yuri terribly but having grown to love languages and the ancient world, thanks to the man's tutelage. He was still very much an outcast among his classmates, even though he is clearly a star pupil.

 

Nevertheless, Eliza is resolved for JD to go to college and saves as much as she can to meet that end. Yuri had left them some money which she did not spend, determined it would go towards JD's education. JD, painfully aware of the limits of his mother's financial abilities, decides instead that if he is to go to college, he will need to do it via scholarship. Upon graduating from high school as its valedictorian and wins a scholarship to the University of New Mexico.


However, before he is able to leave the next fall, Eliza falls ill and is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. She dies two months before JD leaves for New Mexico.

 

JD arrives at the university and immediately impresses Orin Travis, while earning the dislike of silver spoon classmate Peter Nichols, who begins a relentless campaign of bullying. JD tolerates the abuse wishing not to jeopardize his academic future. However, when Peter makes an insult against his mother, JD loses his temper and retaliates, much to his regret. Peter reports his assault to his mother Mariette Nichols, one of Albuquerque's society matrons, and using her influence, she demands the university board expel JD immediately.

 

Orin Travis intercedes on his behalf and is able to keep JD from being expelled but not from losing his scholarship. JD realises without it, he cannot stay in school, and is prepared for the worst when Orin offers him an alternative. Chris Larabee and his relic hunters need a linguist, and what JD would be paid in a year with the team, would pay for his entire college tuition.

 

JD joins the group, not certain what to expect but discovers the friendship of six men who immediately take him under their wing. To his surprise, JD learns for the first time since his mother and Yuri's passing, he has a family again.

JD rides a 1930 Indian Scout

 

 

SUPPORT CHARACTERS

 

Mary Travis

Only daughter of Orin and Evie Travis, she is unmarried and is a journalist with United Press, travelling across the country frequently in pursuit of stories.

 

Orin Travis,

Former Captain of K Troops, now a professor at the University of New Mexico, as well as the Head Curator at the Albuquerque Museum of Antiquities. He sets Chris Larabee and the rest of the seven on their career as relic hunters.

 

Nettie Wells

Former Army Nurse who lives on the a section of the Larabee ranch, Chris gifts her in exchange for playing housekeeper to the property. She lives there with her niece Casey.

 

PLACES

 

Palomas

A bar that once belonged to Robert Recillos who has since passed away. In 1932, in danger of losing the bar, Roberto accepts Ezra Standish as a silent partner in the ownership of the establishment. Since his passing, his controlling interest has moved to his daughter Inez.

 

The Larabee Ranch

Bought for Sarah and Adam before their death, Chris had abandoned the place until recent circumstances forces him to take up the place again. Prior to that, he'd given Nettie Wells a small portion of the property to build her house and call it her own to raise her niece, following her retirement. In exchange for Chris's generosity, Nettie insists on playing housekeeper.

 

THE STORIES

The Magnificent Seven and the Aegis of Zeus

The Magnifcent Seven and the Tablet of Destiny

The Magnificent Seven and the Jewel of Cintamani