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Andrew Howard

Andrew Howard is an FBI special agent, the nominal leader of the Paranatural Incident Task Force, and a lifelong member of the Aetherius Society who sincerely believes that benevolent extraterrestrial Masters are guiding humanity.
Type Player character
Aliases Howard; "Andrew the Alien"; "Half-Gallon Howard"; Special Agent Howard; Detective Howard; Officer Howard; "Changeling" (the Radford Moth); "Twinky Doomguy" (table nickname)
Playbook The Divine (to Walkers 07); the Monstrous (from Walkers 08)
Affiliation FBI; Paranatural Incident Task Force; Aetherius Society
Home Washington, DC (apartment); raised in California
Status Alive, changed, and on rabies treatment (as of Radford Horrors 04)
First appearance Radford Horror 01
Played by Rita

Description

Andrew is 34 at the start of the campaign, "the baby face of the bunch," a lanky "green bean" of a man who passes the Bureau's fitness tests and knows his exact body measurements. He wears a suit and tie almost everywhere, including a pig pen, and prefers it to the blazer Kurt Larson recommends. (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 08, Summer Service 04, Appalachia 08, Walkers 04)

Everyone he meets takes him for a federal agent on sight. A Radford security guard told him he looked "the most like a Fed of anyone I've ever seen," a Georgia motel clerk saw through a Bigfoot T-shirt at once, and the table measures other characters on a "scale of one to Howard." He never denies it. (Radford Horror 07, Summer Service 01, Appalachia 04, Appalachia 06)

In manner he is friendly, earnest, polite ("sir," "ma'am") and painfully awkward. He infodumps about UFOs, rambles honestly to his superiors and raises his hands when a child hugs him. Rita plays him with Charm at -1 and has explained what that means: not that he is a bad person or annoying, "it's just you can always tell there's something wrong with me." He does better with children, older people and dogs. (Summer Service 03, Appalachia 01, Appalachia 07, Walkers 03)

At home he lives alone in a small DC apartment with no pets, eats bland food ("allergy to spice"), avoids the news, jogs in high white socks and a sweatband, and belongs to mail and BBS fandom communities. He sleeps in a full set of striped pajamas, hat included. He barely listens to music; the table's verdict is that the music he would like "doesn't exist yet." (Radford Horror 01, Walkers 01, Walkers 03, Walkers 07)

Since his death and return in Utah he has been subtly different: an uncanny tint to his skin, perhaps slightly taller, an unnerving aura, and a healthy look that comes from drinking blood. Andre describes it as "the very subtle change that has come over Andrew Howard since he died." (Walkers 09, Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 04)

Background

Andrew is from California and was raised alone by a devout mother inside her church, the Aetherius Society. He was homeschooled, grew up with a family doctor who was also a member, and describes the whole thing as being "raised in a really weird sort of situation" and, later, as a cult he has been in since childhood. He has never known his father. (Radford Horror 08, Summer Service 05, Appalachia 01, Walkers 03, Radford Horrors 03)

The faith teaches that the Masters are humanoid, mostly off-planet and telepathic, that Jesus is one of them, and that cosmic forces pushing humanity toward violence are held back by a "spiritual battery" of good energy. In the campaign's opening flashback his mentor Mr. King told him that "the next master is coming" within a few years, and that "Jesus and the Buddha were not wholly of this world, and neither are you." (Radford Horror 01, Summer Service 01, Walkers 01)

His childhood was marked by sleep trouble: "succubus" sleep paralysis, dreams of gray men or aliens crouching over him or licking his face, and an episode in which his mother tied him in a sleeping bag for about a week because, he says, "I kept lashing out." (Summer Service 03, Appalachia 03)

At the FBI he was a desk worker who "had no expectations of being a field agent." He did casework on a serial-killer investigation, knew corpses only from Academy photographs, and was known around the office as "Andrew the Alien," which he found "rad." His file lists other insulting names. He had been tased but never shot. (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 05, Appalachia 06, Walkers 01, Roulet Estate 02)

History

The Radford Horror

Reassigned in spring 1992 and warned by his boss to "be the most normal thing in your environment," Andrew took charge of the new task force and briefed it in his own terms: "we're gonna, you know, travel around, find monsters and shit." He was the only member who knew that Kurt was CIA rather than FBI, and he wondered whether the group had been assembled as a punishment. (Radford Horror 01)

In Radford, Virginia he did the reading and the talking. He found the gutted diary of Amanda Lucky, the alien-abduction book in Abelforth Whateley's room and the missing-dog files, and his questions to the parents surfaced Dr. Lawrence Lori. He hoped throughout for a classic abduction and was let down: "Really was hoping for, like, a tractor beam." (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 04)

When Kurt was badly hurt, Andrew led a healing rite, Lay On Hands, and it worked for the first time in his life. The cost was shared harm and a nosebleed that ran on and off for days and had to be irrigated at the hospital. He was euphoric anyway. (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 04, Radford Horror 05)

At the old-town church he was overwhelmed by dread before the door opened. Inside, the Radford Moth addressed him telepathically: "Changeling. You can help me. You have the understanding." Wilbur Whateley told him, "You, of all people, you have to understand." A mind-controlled Huell Kendrick shot him in the chest; Andrew watched the bullet slow before it struck his breastbone. He laid hands on the Biz and on Kurt until he was vomiting blood, swung a hammer and missed, and crawled out with his harm track full. As the church burned he heard: "Save me, child! You know the ones who made me—". (Radford Horror 07, Radford Horror 08)

In the aftermath he fired the church mace for the first time, at a searcher wearing the shadow poncho; what came out was "nothing," which erased the man's head in cross-section and then restored it. He needed three people's worth of blood, gave a hospital speech about the Masters that was met with a long silence (Manipulate Someone, 5), and closed the case with a plain verdict: "Look, aliens exist. My coworkers are great. For the most part. The Biz needs a better diet. I am out of my depth." (Radford Horror 08)

The Summer Service

In Marblehead Andrew speed-read the Sons of Adam Bible "with a sick intensity," recognized its Lemuria allusions from his fringe reading, and guessed the plot early: "Man, I think they might sacrifice people to a lake monster." He declined the communion wine. A page from the Radford ER about a possible clotting disorder went nowhere, because the lab had lost his samples. (Summer Service 01)

Unrecorded session

Summer Service 02 was never recorded. Later recaps say Andrew and Kurt went down in an experimental submarine with college students, found the stealth wreck with a piece "eaten" out of it, and sat dark while the humming, ring-shaped angel thing passed. See Lost episodes. (Summer Service 03)

A gray-skinned visitor came to him in a dream to apologize: "I'm really sorry about all the stuff that's gonna happen to you." He hid the dream from the team while privately wondering, in Rita's words, "Is my dad an alien? Why did he kiss me on the mouth?" He attended the service alone, carried the wine to Donald McManley, and delivered the result to the car: "Guys, we have worms!" Learning that Kurt had brought the Davy Crockett prompted "I'm sorry, you have a nuke?" (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04)

At Arnold Weathers' house he told Madeline Weathers that Jesus is "an all-powerful alien that came to Earth to help us," then turned his holy weapon on the worm-ridden dog Puddles. It beheaded the dog and passed straight through Kurt's hand. Rita's reaction: "Oh shit. Shit, I forgot this wasn't pepper spray." He ended that session carrying worms, a twisted ankle and two more harm from healing. (Summer Service 05)

In the finale he panicked over the nuclear weapon, scraped Jester off the car, backed over him and stepped away to vomit ("I need to look at mud"), and landed the decisive blow on the creature with a captured flashlight weapon that burned his hand. He then phoned Big Bill and enforced the cover story on the team: "Terrorists, okay. Terrorists." (Summer Service 06)

The Things in Appalachia

Now officially a field agent, Andrew visited Dr. Arthur, his childhood doctor and fellow member (minor characters), who explained his healing as higher powers channeled with backlash, offered a meditation seminar and recommended tampons for the nosebleeds. (Appalachia 01)

In Dahlonega he lectured on Bigfoot hunting, proposed a werewolf, was adored by Harvey the Great Dane, and was taken aside by Prim Greengrass to confess his embarrassing middle name. One night he sleepwalked, or was compelled, for miles through the woods past the Death Cave and woke with a stranger's bloody lighter and no memory. In the cave he healed Kurt again, using a "frequencies" bracelet from his doctor as a focus, and went unstable. Mother Dahlia Riversand told him, "You've got the devil standing right behind you." (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 02, Appalachia 03, Appalachia 04)

The Clinton surveillance scandal landed on him. He pleaded to Big Bill that "We're not surveilling Bill Clinton. We're surveilling dead Chewbacca," and the next day Fox 5 Atlanta caught him on camera in a deputy's uniform. His sweating "Thank you for your time again" aired about every ten minutes for the rest of the day. (Appalachia 07, Appalachia 08)

Underground, having been sworn in as a deputy, he was thrown through a ceiling and juggled by an ape-man, with every blow cancelled by what Andre calls his "magic shield." He declared it "the greatest day of my life," shielded Huell during the retreat, and severed the arm of Big Bob with the "absence" from his pepper spray. He ended the last recorded session of the arc with a dislocated knee, unable to walk, and about six gold bars in his satchel. (Appalachia 08, Appalachia 09)

Unrecorded session

The finale, Appalachia 10, was never recorded. Later episodes establish that Jan Martense shot Andrew in the face that same day, that he recovered "remarkably well," and that he left hospital in about half the expected time. Andrew says only that it "felt like" he was shot; Kurt covers for him with "Thank God for helmets." (Walkers 01, Walkers 02)

The Walkers in Skin

The arc opened with Andrew waiting an hour and a half outside the Oval Office with forgotten Yeti fur in his bag. George H. W. Bush called him the task force's "only true believer" and charged him with the survival of the country; Andrew answered with a long lecture on the Aetherius Society while the President's face went blank. Back at the office Alberta Wilmarth asked him to get her mother exhumed, and he took the case to Utah. (Walkers 01)

At the Sherman Ranch he "vibrated" at every mention of the ranch hum, photographed each light and scorch mark, cited the 1950s Levelland case, and won over Walt Murphy with encyclopedic UFO knowledge. At the Ballard bar, where he turned red over the talk about the town water and was consoled with a root beer float, the Biz gave him the name "Half-Gallon Howard"; by Andre's count he was called it at least five times that evening. When a judge balked at the exhumation on religious grounds, Andrew had Big Bill telephone him, and the order went through. During the night event he believed he was buried alive, sealed himself in the refrigerator and levitated inside the white ring; in the morning he was furious to have missed an abduction. Mayor Wilford Hiram cut his hand with his rings in a handshake. (Walkers 02, Walkers 03, Walkers 04, Walkers 05)

He then recalled a dream of finding himself, naked, eating garbage outside his apartment and being chased into the desert by that smiling self. An anonymous note appeared in his bed ("I know you aren't one of them; you have angels") inviting him to the Ballard High School gym at 1 a.m., alone. He decided to go. (Walkers 06)

The gym

That night Andrew first tackled a naked intruder at the guest house and, panicking, used Cast Out Evil on him without understanding what he had done. At the gym two upright horses showed him in, and on a stool sat another Andrew Howard, who trotted over to shake his hand and offered "the easy way or the hard way." Andrew pepper-sprayed his double, was stamped on and shot, pulled the pin on a grenade from his bag, and was pinned under a horse while the wounded double crawled over him. Its tendrils entered his mouth and everything went black. (Walkers 07)

From that moment Rita played a copy: see Andrew Howard (duplicate). The other players had been sent out of the call for the gym scene, and before bringing them back Andre gave Rita a private handout and told her, "You are not in Andrew Howard's body. You are in a replica." He confirmed that she was now playing the same double Andrew had just fought, grenade wounds included, and that the real Andrew's fate was unknown. The Skinwalker faction had grown the double in a hurry from tissue taken by the mayor's ring. It gave the team a cleaned-up story and travelled with them for the rest of the arc, sickly, easier to hurt than Andrew had ever been, unable to heal anyone, and quietly working for the faction. The rest of the table did not learn of the swap until Walkers 09. (Walkers 07, Walkers 08)

Death and return

The real Andrew died. At the end of Walkers 08, after the other players had logged off, Andre cut to "the other Andrew Howard" in a scene with Rita alone. Andrew had been shot through the heart; dying was agonizing, which surprised him, "because he had always been told that being dead doesn't hurt"; and the inhuman parts of him then refused to let him die, leaving him with two heartbeats and rearranged innards. He woke naked, wrapped in plastic and duct tape, at the bottom of the corpse pile in the Roosevelt police station morgue. Rita rebuilt him in the same scene as a new playbook, the Monstrous: see Andrew Howard (the Monstrous). (Walkers 08)

Unrecorded session

Walkers 08.5 was never recorded. In Walkers 09 Andrew says that he realized the police in the station were not real cops, broke out, and spent an afternoon explaining himself to Nancy the goose; he had been gone about two days. Over the same stretch the duplicate rode with the team and the National Guard. (Walkers 09)

He reappeared as a naked, blood-covered figure with a gunshot wound in his chest, sprinting at about 35 mph toward the convoy. Rita was still playing the duplicate, which carried the party's X mark, and Andre voiced the newcomer. The duplicate and Huell both shot at him; he kept coming, shouting that he had been "shot in the chest and woke up under a pile of dead naked people" and that "there was no God up there." Kurt had him handcuffed, gagged and put in a Humvee with a medic. The duplicate then refused a mouth check, shot Kurt in the leg and ran, and gave itself away when its tendrils reached for Huell. With that Andre said, "Now that the game is up, Rita, let's swap back who we're controlling." Andrew was fed rations, which the sugar-eating copies could not have kept down, and was uncuffed. Andre observed: "It's funny, Howard, that the way that you proved you were human was by being bulletproof." (Walkers 09)

In the cavern under the community center he recovered his ruined suit, his fanny pack and his pendant, the last in a bag marked "Hazardous" with several exclamation points. Angry for the first time in his life, he shot his duplicate in the back while shouting, "You weren't even gonna tell my mom that I got stolen?" He left Utah fast, bulletproof and carrying the goose. (Walkers 09)

The Roulet Estate

Andrew typed his last Utah report on Christmas Eve, did some "religious soul-searching" ("Have I been chosen?") and went home to California. He now craved very rare steak, which Rita put down to "iron deficiency." Drawn to the Roulet House by the foil-wrapped letter, he froze, starstruck, at his first sight of a Grey, chased it, took a rifle shot to the face that left only broken skin on his forehead, and picked up its dropped VSS. He hid the face shot from the team and spent the night shouting at the woods. He also had his first ever hangover. (Roulet Estate 01, Roulet Estate 02)

At the Brooks Pharmacy siege Officer Todd handed him operational command. He stalled the gunman on the phone, was bitten by the old woman in the VW Beetle, and on storming the store was seized by a craving at the sight of a hostage's blood. He took a penalty for the rest of the fight rather than drink. His healing failed on the Biz; he tied a tourniquet instead and licked the blood from his hands. When the "alien" was unmasked as a man in a foam-latex mask, he kicked over a display stand. (Roulet Estate 03)

The epilogue is the first full statement of Andrew's condition. His doctor and church officials were evasive, X-rayed him without showing him the films, and treated him as a "special horse"; he sensed for the first time that they did not know what they were talking about. The doctor began mailing him human blood weekly, disguised as frozen orange juice. On desk duty in New York for the World Trade Center bombing investigation, he was thawing blood in a Brita pitcher when Ross Perot telephoned. (Roulet Estate 03)

The Radford Horrors

Back from New York, Andrew found Huell in a wheelchair, searched the Biz's abandoned apartment and turned up the Moby-Dick book cipher (Investigate a Mystery, 12). He asked Huell, and then Kurt, whether the Biz might be a double agent. In Moscow, Boris Yeltsin asked the Biz about him; the Biz praised him and left out his abilities. (Radford Horrors 01)

With Daniel Webster now running the team, Andrew was "having a great time not being in charge." He travelled with powdered pig blood and a bloodletting kit and explained them as a doctor's diet for anemia. When he drank the rehydrated blood at the diner, Webster wrote "Andrew Howard is a vampire?" in his notebook. At the Safe Environment Fund site Andrew tore barbed wire apart bare-handed and shot a guard in the leg; the guard fired back, and the bullet slowed to a stop an inch from Andrew's chest. Webster saw him take the shot. (Radford Horrors 02)

After a mouse bite at the Pay n' Stay the team was given rabies treatment. Andrew dreamed of losing at beach volleyball to his alien dad, who mouthed "Don't take it." He reacted badly to the immunoglobulin, with a 104 F fever and yellow-tinged eyes, and discharged himself for fear the doctors would find out what he was. A Gatorade-and-blood slurry revived him at once. (Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

At the Roanoke mental hospital he used magic (13 on Use Magic) to loosen the knots in Wilbur Whateley's mind, and Wilbur woke asking for his brother. In the most recent episode he was last seen lifting Kurt into a tree one-handed, by the belt, while Webster watched. (Radford Horrors 04)

Relationships

Abilities and equipment

See Game mechanics for the rules behind these.

Playbook and ratings. Andrew began as the Divine. His Charm is -1 and his Act Under Pressure rolls are made at -1; Rita calls Tough his best stat and says "I'm not Cool. I'm Tough. And Weird." At the rebuild Rita set his ratings at Charm -1, Cool -1, Tough 2 and Weird 3, noting that a later advance could raise Tough to 3; by Radford Horrors 02 she gives them as "three Tough and three Weird. That's all my stats." (Radford Horror 02, Summer Service 03, Walkers 08, Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 03)

As the Divine:

As the Monstrous: he dropped Lay On Hands and Cast Out Evil, on the reasoning that the change had cut him off from their source. Rita chose the Feed curse (blood), a "life drain" natural attack that works at short range, and the moves Unquenchable Vitality, Immortal and Preternatural Speed; she also spoke of taking his old resilience again, and weighed Mental Dominion, Unnatural Appeal and Unholy Strength without settling on them. In play he runs at about 35 mph, shrugs off small-arms fire, tears barbed wire by hand and needs blood regularly. He can still Use Magic, as he did on Wilbur Whateley in Radford Horrors 04. (Walkers 08, Walkers 09, Roulet Estate 02, Radford Horrors 04)

Gear:

Harm and dread. He filled his harm track at the Radford church and was at five harm and unstable when the gym went black. His dread stood at 5 in Marblehead and had reached 18 by the night of the gym. (Radford Horror 07, Summer Service 03, Walkers 07)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"But that ain't mean. That's just… that's just rad."

Rita (as Andrew), on learning he is called "Andrew the Alien." (Radford Horror 01)

Quote

"No, no, no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I got prayers, I got the Masters. We got things for this."

Rita (as Andrew), while vomiting blood. (Radford Horror 07)

Quote

"Guys, we have worms!"

Rita (as Andrew). (Summer Service 03)

Quote

"Sir, I don't think we have the technology to record what our eyeballs have seen."

Rita (as Andrew), to Big Bill, asked to prove he never surveilled Clinton. (Appalachia 07)

Quote

"I mean, sir, that's been my responsibility my entire life. You didn't have to ask."

Rita (as Andrew), to President Bush. (Walkers 01)

Quote

"God damn it, I almost got abducted. Why weren't the windows open?"

Rita, giving Andrew's thoughts on the morning after the night event. (Walkers 05)

Quote

"I wanna make an informed decision, bro. Like, what's the hard way?"

Rita (as Andrew), to his double. (Walkers 07)

Quote

"Thought you took care of me, motherfuckers! Give me my shit back!"

Rita (as Andrew), in the cavern. (Walkers 09)

Quote

"Did you call the right person? Like, there are a lot of Andrew Howards in the world."

Rita (as Andrew), to President Perot. (Roulet Estate 03)

Trivia

  • The table usually calls him "Howard." "Half-Gallon Howard" was coined by Ezra, as the Biz, at the Ballard bar in Walkers 03, topping a local's "ten-thousand-gallon Tom." Zack took it up at once and uses it most, and in Radford Horrors 01 it is Zack whom Ezra asks to remind him of the joke. The name followed Andrew back to FBI headquarters; see Running gags. (Walkers 03, Walkers 04, Radford Horrors 01)
  • His middle name was confided privately in Appalachia 02 and not said at the table ("I got three first names"). In Walkers 09 Rita gives it as Nancy, the same as the goose. (Appalachia 02, Walkers 09)
  • His church is unnamed at first ("the Masters," "Mr. King's organization," "Andrew's cult") and is first called the Aetherius Society in Walkers 01. Rita and Andre later wondered whether it knew about the dark side of his powers, or had itself not been told the full story. (Radford Horror 08, Walkers 01, Walkers 08)
  • "'Cause Rita called dad," Dante's explanation of the exhumation order at the top of Walkers 05, is a joke about Big Bill, whom Andrew had phone the judge. (Walkers 04, Walkers 05)
  • The table's later shorthand for the Utah events is loose. Dante calls the copy "Dummy Andrew" and once tells Andrew "you were an alien replacement who was dying," and he opens Radford Horrors 04 recalling that Andrew "got shot in, like, the face or something" at the fence, where Radford Horrors 02 has the bullet stop short of his chest. (Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)
  • Rita insists he is "something else," not a vampire; as Dante points out, he walks in sunlight and has a reflection. (Radford Horrors 02)
  • Slips at the table: Andrew has been called "Arnold," Andre once reaches for "Kingsley" as Mr. King's name, and Big Bill once calls Kurt "Howard." (Radford Horror 08, Walkers 06)
  • He rolled a d100 to choose his dinner at the Spud Hut. (Appalachia 02)

Appearances

Andrew appears in every recorded canon session. In Walkers 07 he is replaced partway through; in Walkers 08 only the duplicate is on screen until the closing scene; in Walkers 09 Rita plays the duplicate and then the real Andrew.