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Zack

Zack plays Huell Kendrick, the task force's veteran cop: a laconic, chain-smoking FBI agent with a large knife and the highest Cool in the party.
Role Player
Characters Huell Kendrick
Sessions All 37 recorded canon sessions
First session Radford Horror 01

Characters played

Huell Kendrick

Zack has played Huell in every recorded canon session. Huell is a divorced career lawman from Louisiana who came into the first case assuming the missing girl was a runaway, and who has since been lifted by a UFO, filled with worms, bitten by a goose and shot in the foot by a man in an alien mask. Dante's description of his build, which Zack adopted, is "Disco Elysium skinny fat." (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 06, Summer Service 03, Walkers 03, Roulet Estate 03, Appalachia 03)

Zack is not in the one-shot, though Huell is its in-fiction audience: Andre ruled that the whole thing was an OVA Huell watched on hotel cable while falling asleep. (Philosopher's Fist, Appalachia 02)

Play style

Deadpan

Zack plays Huell dry. The humor is a cop's: blunt, tired and slightly rude to everyone. "Kid's dead, though. Here's the shoe." "Ma'am, it's Georgia. I understand." "Sir, sir, I am an officer. Do not touch me. I am listening to the menu." He asks odd questions at odd times ("Hey, Howard, you ever been shot?") and keeps Huell skeptical well past the evidence: after the rest of the party has seen a craft in the sky, Zack notes that Huell is "still not convinced. I wasn't in the car that saw it personally." (Appalachia 03, Appalachia 02, Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 05)

Choosing the interesting option

Zack regularly picks the outcome that is worse for Huell and better for the scene. In the church fight he "was kinda hoping I'd get hit by it, 'cause it's more interesting," and Huell duly shot Andrew in the chest under mind control. Huell stays asleep through a team meeting "just because I think it's in character. To be shitty about it." Zack ruled that Huell "doesn't know how to ride a bike. I think that's funny," and played him as torn about taking the worm cure because of what the worms had done for him. (Radford Horror 07, Radford Horror 05, Walkers 04, Summer Service 03)

Naming things

Zack names Huell's things. The knife is Muriel, and Huell calls Nancy the goose "Betsy," a deliberate joke on Zack's part: the goose's name is Nancy. (Summer Service 05, Walkers 07)

Cool under pressure

Huell's Cool of +3 covers most of what Zack rolls, and he knows it: "I'm plus three on Cool, so I'm so fucking cool." He uses it to help other players, to give first aid, and to wait in the car as the party's "anti-rabbiter" in case a suspect bolts. Zack wants Huell to have cool slides and entrances, and holds his gun with the flashlight "cool-style." (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 06, Summer Service 05)

Notes and catch-ups

Zack's notes are a table joke of their own. Andre said a page of them "lacks the quiet dignity of the string board"; Dante said it "looks like a page in the Necronomicon." Zack resolved to "keep better notes this time" at the start of the second arc. He is the player most likely to ask for a recap of what the party is doing and why, and he could not recall what he had named Huell's ex-wife and daughter when they came up. Andre: "Well, okay, we'll put a pin in that." (Radford Horror 03, Summer Service 01, Radford Horrors 04, Roulet Estate 01)

He is also the one who remembers the things Andre forgets. It was Zack who noticed the dread mechanic had gone missing, and who reminded Andre of it again in the next finale. (Walkers 07, Walkers 09)

Signature moments

  • Lifted by the craft. Huell grabs the figure in the spaceman suit, threatens it at knifepoint with his new move, clings on as the craft carries the figure off, and falls into the trees: four harm and a broken arm. (Radford Horror 06)
  • Shooting Howard. Mind-controlled at the church, Huell shoots Andrew in the chest, then cuts off the creature's leg with bolt cutters and takes a hit that fills every harm box. He is still bringing it up arcs later ("Howard, I shot you"). (Radford Horror 07, Appalachia 06)
  • Thanks, worms. Infected in Marblehead, Huell gets stronger, younger-looking and unable to sleep. Zack: "being a wormwolf sounds pretty cool." (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04, Summer Service 05)
  • Toothbrush Man. A grudge against the hotel clerk Jester over toothbrushes pays off in the finale with a string of one-liners. (Summer Service 01, Summer Service 06)
  • Firing the nuke. After a round of rock-paper-scissors for the honor, Zack burns a Luck point to make the shot a clean hit, and asks for Huell "to sneeze suddenly, jerking the weapon in the wrong direction, to indicate the luck I just had." (Summer Service 06)
  • Double sixes, twice. Two rolls of double sixes in one session, the second for a total of 15. (Walkers 04)
  • Darts. He spends a Luck point to win a bar game of darts. Ezra: "All right, I appreciate blowing it on stupid shit." (Walkers 03)
  • Roseanne. After the task force is disbanded Huell ends up in front of Roseanne. Andre reminded Zack that Huell had once told McManley that "watching Roseanne was rock bottom for him." (Roulet Estate 03)
  • The grenade. In the Utah finale Huell throws a grenade "unusually far" into the middle of the machinery in the cavern. (Walkers 09)

Dice

Zack's dice swing between sessions more than anyone's. Hot nights: an 11 and a 15 in Summer Service 05; double sixes twice in Walkers 04 ("I'm gonna get a lot of 12s today"); two 12s and two 14s in Walkers 09 ("Damn, I'm on fire today"); a streak of 11s in Roulet Estate 03 ("Man, I've been rolling good today"). Cold nights: Walkers 06, where he rolled double ones twice ("I'm not having good luck"). Huell was the first character to level up, in Radford Horror 03. (Summer Service 05, Walkers 04, Walkers 09, Roulet Estate 03, Walkers 06, Radford Horror 03)

He is heard spending Luck three times: on the nuke, on a failed attempt to charm Donald McManley, and on the darts. (Summer Service 06, Appalachia 01, Walkers 03)

Attendance

Zack is heard in every recorded canon session, Radford Horror 01 through Radford Horrors 04. He is not in the one-shot.

See also