Hatchette | Bitch Clown

SETTING/WORLD BUILDING

• Isolated pocket dimension, far removed from conventional reality. People from the "outside" more often than not end up here by accident, and it is only by random chance they can find their way back out.
• This particular space, aptly named the Carnival, resembles a decaying circus; think big top tents with holes eaten through the tarp, shattered glass in the Hall of Mirrors, and concession stands overpopulated with maggots and vermin. The level of neglect and rot here is the stuff of nightmares. If the denizens don't kill you first, the lack of habitability certainly will.

WORLD POPULATION

• Speaking of the denizens... well. Let's just say you don't want to run into one of them solo, if you know what's good for you. Poor bastards are a little cracked up in the head.
• Guests, or "Marks" as the natives call them, are stragglers from other worlds who have fallen into the Carnival and can't find their way out. Most of the ones you'd find now are half-dead and ten-sixths mad, little more than zombified beings. Those that still have their sanity should be approached with caution.
• The natives—the Clowns—are the former custodians of the Carnival. Odd, alien, and almost fae-like in their whimsy, they used to bring joy to those that wandered into their land. But then, a tragedy flipped their world upside-down. Now only a few remain, and despite their too-wide grins, they are far from happy.

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CHARACTER BIO

• Name: Hatchette (the only one she remembers anymore).
• Gender: Female-presenting (she/her).
• Age: Centuries, at least.
• Species: Clown (mythical humanoid creature).
• Appearance: Grotesquely tall (7’5”) and rail thin with unnaturally long limbs. Her rubber hose anatomy suggests a lack of bone, but the juts in her joints contradicts this. Her skin is completely white. Her face is frozen in a perpetual shark-toothed smile, streaked with messy black and red makeup that make her look more sinister. And, of course, she has a bulbous red nose that honks when squeezed.
• Hair: Bright yellow, messy, chopped to shoulder-length. Four braids hang from all corners of her head with sharp objects tied at the ends for lethal effect.
• Eyes: Right eye is gouged out and pitch black. Left eye is bright yellow with black rings.
• Outfit: Black-and-yellow striped leotard with baggy sleeves and a fuzzy black collar, paired with white gloves and black poulaines (shoes with curled toes). Completes the look with a black headband adorned with spikes.

PSYCHOLOGY

• Personality: Sadistic, abrasive, reckless. Takes great joy in scaring the piss out of people, though she stops just shy of causing bodily harm worse than "The Artful Wound." Doesn't care what impact her words have on people, and may even ragebait someone just to watch them get more irritated. Sometimes, though, she does miss the days when the Carnival was more colorful and lively.
• Speech pattern: Intersperses sentences with carny slang (i.e. "Al-A-Ga-Zam" as greetings, "joints" referring to attractions, "marks" to identify guests/wanderers). Swears openly and loudly, and will get creative with how she uses curse words to emphasize excitement or anger. Talks like a delinquent and uses imperfect grammar.
• Mannerisms: When inactive, she will slump over near the closest wall like a ragdoll and seemingly go dormant. Once she finds someone to hunt and annoy, she'll stalk and creep on them from the shadows until she sees the perfect opportunity to ambush them. Will never leave this person alone until she gets bored.
• Likes: Dark humor, jumpscares, buttered popcorn, fizzy drinks, puns.
• Dislikes: Stoic faces, fatcats, grey skies, sterile smells, balloon animals (used to like them, but startles when they pop).

BACKSTORY

• The Circus used to be a brighter place. Hatchette used to go by a different name. She and the other clowns would sing and dance all day, and they would be happy to entertain the guests that would suddenly come and go through their space. Life was simple then.
• Then came one guest whose idea of fun was... different. They saw the Carnival as their playground, and the Clowns and other patrons were like ants for them to squash beneath their feet. Hatchette watched many of her friends be reduced to splatters on the floor before she mustered the courage to 86 this guest herself with the sharp end of a throwing axe. That lone act of violence broke something precious inside of her.
• From then on, the survivors of the Carnival became wary of newcomers, assuming the worst. The cycle of paranoia and distrust quickly led to a steep decline in their quality of life, which in turn caused the clowns to cope by adopting more morbid forms of comedy. Eventually, though, they just became ruthless.
• As it stands now, the clowns are a complete perversion of what they used to be—inspiring terror and despair instead of representing childlike wonder. Hatchette isn't faring much better, but she does appear to be one of the last sane ones left, and even that's a generous claim. For what it's worth, you'll be lucky to run into her first.

ABILITIES

• Clowns in general are inherently magical beings in this realm. They can manipulate their environment at will, performing advanced spells disguised as parlor tricks. A lot of what they are capable of can border on cartoonish, such as randomly pulling out mallets from behind their backs.
• Hatchette in particular is a skilled contortionist, being able to squish herself down into ridiculously small spaces. Smaller than should even be possible.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• A clown's nose is a vestigial organ on their body. Though it can honk when pinched, it doesn't serve any real biological use. Each clown has a unique pitch; Hatchette's nose squeaks high and shrill.
• Though she likes scaring people with surprises, she can't stand the sound of balloons popping. Brings back bad memories.
• While other clowns have kill counts in the dozens, hers remains at only one. She refuses to hurt another guest after offing the one homicidal invader. She didn't like how it felt to take a life.
• She carries a rusty axe at all times, clinging onto it like a comfort item.