The smiling dead

MELANCHOLY HILL 🩸 Mel — Personality Species: Human Blood: Black Raised by: Ken Affiliation: Gaslight District / wants to join the Smiling Dead Sexuality: Bisexual

Core personality

Mel genuinely considers herself one of the Rotlings.

She doesn't walk around thinking, "I'm secretly human!" Her human identity is almost an annoying technicality to her. The Gaslight District is her home, Rotling culture is what she knows, and she participates in its violence and chaos.

She's hard to scare. She's seen enough insanity growing up that most bizarre situations barely register anymore.

But she's not fearless. When something genuinely gets to her, it gets to her hard, precisely because she's usually so difficult to intimidate.

🖤 Ken

Ken is her adoptive father, and Mel loves her family.

There's one particular thing about him that hurts her, though.

Ken publicly talks about killing the human.

Mel knows he's doing it as a facade. He has to convince everyone else that he hates the human just as much as they do.

But hearing her own father casually talk about killing "the human" still fucking stings.

She doesn't necessarily confront him about it every time. Sometimes she just goes quiet.

Because she knows what he means.

And she also knows exactly what everyone else would do if they discovered the truth.

🔪 Violence

Mel isn't some gentle person who happens to be hiding among violent monsters.

She likes violence too.

She grew up around Rotlings. Fighting, killing, destruction, and general chaos are normal parts of her world.

That's one of the reasons she can blend in so naturally.

Her humanity doesn't automatically make her morally different from everyone else.

🏴 The Smiling Dead

Mel really wants to join the Smiling Dead.

To her, they're not just criminals. They're basically everything exciting about the Gaslight District rolled into one group.

She wants the freedom, danger, reputation, and belonging that comes with them.

Ken absolutely refuses.

His reasoning is simple:

He already has enough trouble keeping his daughter alive. He's not letting her voluntarily walk into organized crime.

Mel obviously thinks this is bullshit.

And it creates a nice father-daughter conflict because Ken's refusal isn't really about controlling her.

He's terrified that getting involved with the Smiling Dead will expose what she actually is.

☁️ Heaven

Mel hates Heaven.

Not because she's secretly evil or because Heaven has personally wronged her.

It's because Heaven represents everything that isn't home.

She was raised in the Gaslight District. Angels are frightening. The Virtues are distant. God abandoned the Rotlings. Heaven belongs to a world that Mel doesn't identify with.

So if someone tells her:

"You're human. You belong in Heaven."

Her reaction is basically:

" no. I belong here."

And that's probably one of the most important things about her character.

Mel doesn't want to escape the Gaslight District.

She wants to prove that she belongs in it.

MUD 🪝 Mud — Personality

Relation: Ken's older brother / Mel's uncle / Breadhead's uncle Personality: Grumpy, intelligent, disgusting, chaotic, flirtatious Lifestyle: Criminal, unpredictable, and somehow always comfortable being gross

🧠 Smart but absolutely disgusting

Mud is genuinely very intelligent.

Unfortunately, he uses that intelligence for some of the most disgusting and ridiculous things imaginable.

He's good at figuring things out, making plans, and getting himself out of situations, but his solutions are often completely insane.

His favorite trick?

Popping out of toilets.

Nobody knows how he does it.

Nobody asks anymore.

🤢 His body is basically a garbage disposal

Mud can vomit and swallow ridiculous amounts of things.

He can eat things that absolutely shouldn't be eaten and somehow be completely fine afterward.

His most famous weird habit is:

Eating coins.

Nobody knows why.

Mud apparently considers his stomach to be a wallet.

Need some money?

Just wait for Mud to cough it back up.

🥶 The meat hook

Mud sleeps hanging from a meat hook in the cold.

To him, this is completely normal.

But despite being perfectly capable of sleeping like that, Mud has one great dream:

Owning one of those insanely comfortable mattresses.

For someone who can sleep on a meat hook, he's surprisingly passionate about mattresses.

👨‍👦 Mud and Ken

Mud is older than Ken.

The brothers have a complicated relationship.

Ken became more responsible and took more care of Mel because she was fragile.

Mud noticed this and, rather than getting jealous of Mel, basically decided:

"Fine. I'll take care of Breadhead."

Breadhead was extremely heavy as a kid.

Ken eventually started telling Mud to stop carrying him.

Mud refused.

He kept carrying Breadhead partly because he genuinely cared about him and partly because doing it pissed Ken off.

Equality and spite.

That's basically Mud's parenting philosophy.

❤️ Mud and Mel

Mud doesn't hate Mel.

He actually loves his niece.

He understands that Ken gave her more attention because she needed it, and he doesn't blame her for that.

However, Mud constantly tries to get Mel to work for him for some mysterious reason.

Ken absolutely does not want Mel getting involved in a life of crime.

Mud doesn't seem particularly concerned about Ken's opinion.

😏 Mud's love life

Mud is a manwhore.

He loves women, flirting, and having fun.

He's constantly chasing romantic or sexual adventures and doesn't exactly have a reputation for settling down.

It's another part of his chaotic personality rather than something he takes particularly seriously.

🔪 Underneath everything

Despite being disgusting, grumpy, and completely fucking weird, Mud genuinely cares about his family.

He's intelligent enough to understand what's happening around him, protective enough to take care of Breadhead, and affectionate enough to care about Mel.

He just happens to express basically all of that through spite, crime, bodily fluids, coins, and toilets.

KEN THE BUTCHER. 🔪 Ken — Personality

Real name: Ken Known as: The Butcher Occupation: Butcher / Crime boss Organization: The Smiling Dead Family Mafia Business: Whale Belly Butcher Shop Family: Mud (older brother), Mel (adoptive daughter), Breadhead (son created through magic) Relationship status: Divorced

🔪 The Butcher

Everyone calls Ken The Butcher.

He's the leader of the Smiling Dead Family Mafia and owns the Whale Belly Butcher Shop.

The butcher shop isn't just a normal business. It's part of Ken's identity and his position within the Gaslight District.

He's respected, feared, and known for being someone who doesn't make empty threats.

If Ken decides someone is a threat to his family, he doesn't hesitate to deal with them permanently.

And because Rotlings can't simply be killed...

cement.

If someone threatens Mel or another member of his family badly enough, Ken has no problem strapping them to cement and sending them into the ocean.

🩸 Mel's Secret

Ken's biggest fear isn't losing his position.

It's people discovering that Mel is human.

He knows exactly what that would mean.

That's why Ken is extremely protective of her and refuses to let her join the Smiling Dead Family Mafia.

He knows that if Mel gets involved in the family's criminal activities, she could:

• Get injured
• Be exposed
• Be recognized as human
• Become a target
• Potentially be killed

Ken would rather have Mel angry at him than risk exposing her.

🤐 He trusts almost nobody

Ken doesn't even fully trust his own family with Mel's secret.

Not Mud.

Not Breadhead.

Nobody.

The only person who knows the truth is Ken himself.

He keeps the secret locked away because he believes that even one careless mistake could destroy Mel's life.

That creates a painful situation where Ken has to constantly hide the truth from people he loves.

🧠 Half rational, half emotional

Ken's brain is basically split into two sides.

One side is rational, intelligent, and calculating.

The other is angry, emotional, and impulsive.

The rational side thinks things through.

The emotional side wants to immediately punch someone through a wall.

This creates a constant internal conflict.

Ken can be explaining a perfectly reasonable plan one second...

...and then completely lose his shit because someone ignored him.

🗣️ The Family

Ken gets incredibly annoyed when his family refuses to listen to his rational ideas.

He'll be trying to explain a plan while everyone else is already doing whatever the hell they want.

Eventually the family collectively hits him with:

"GO TO HELL!"

And then they go do their own thing.

Ken fucking hates this.

Especially because he's usually the one who actually thought the plan through.

🖤 The Smiling Dead

Ken values loyalty above almost everything else from the Rotlings who work for him.

He doesn't expect everyone to be perfect.

He expects them to be loyal.

If someone proves themselves loyal to Ken and his family, he can treat them with genuine respect.

If someone betrays that loyalty, the relationship changes very quickly.

✨ Breadhead

Breadhead wasn't born normally.

Ken created him through magic.

This makes Breadhead's existence another strange piece of Ken's history and gives their father-son relationship a unique foundation.

Ken considers Breadhead part of his family just as much as Mel.

💔 His divorce

Ken is divorced.

Despite everything else going on in his life, he's still stingy about his ex-wife.

Whether it's money, possessions, arguments, or simply refusing to let something go, Ken can hold onto grudges involving her far longer than he probably should.

It's one of the more mundane parts of his personality.

The Butcher can intimidate an entire mafia...

but his divorce still pisses him off.

❤️ The core of Ken

Ken is fundamentally a protector.

His intelligence, criminal power, paranoia, anger, and brutality all revolve around one thing:

His family.

He'll negotiate when he can.

He'll plan when he has time.

He'll try to be rational.

But if someone seriously threatens Mel or another member of his family, Ken's rational side can disappear completely.

And that's when The Butcher comes out.

BREADHEAD 🍞 Breadhead — Personality

Species: Bread Golem Origin: Jewish folklore Family: Ken (father), Mel (sister), Mud (uncle) Personality: Sweet, simple-minded, loyal, shy, violent when necessary Favorite things: Family, drinking, piano, bread

🍞 A bread golem

Breadhead is a bread golem originating from Jewish folklore.

He isn't the smartest guy in the Gaslight District.

He's not completely stupid, either.

He just has a very simple way of looking at things.

And one thing he understands perfectly is:

He loves his family.

❤️ Family comes first

Breadhead is incredibly loyal to Ken and Mel.

If his family needs him, he'll do whatever is necessary.

If Ken orders him to hurt someone, Breadhead doesn't spend much time questioning it.

He'll simply do it.

He's also perfectly willing to get violent if someone threatens his family.

Despite this, Breadhead himself is generally a pretty sweet and harmless guy when there's no reason for violence.

😳 Girls

Breadhead can become surprisingly shy when a girl flirts with him.

He's capable of breaking someone's bones without hesitation, but a girl giving him genuine attention?

Suddenly he doesn't know what to do with himself.

He gets awkward and embarrassed surprisingly easily.

🍺 Drinking

Breadhead loves drinking.

His body works differently from a normal person's, though.

He can shove around ten beer bottles into his head, with his bread body absorbing the alcohol.

The bottles basically disappear into him.

And somehow, this is considered normal for Breadhead.

🎹 Piano

Despite being simple-minded, Breadhead has one extraordinary talent:

He's the best piano player in the entire Gaslight District.

Nobody really knows how he became so good.

He can sit down at a piano and play beautifully, completely contradicting his usual personality.

It's one of those things that makes people realize there's more to Breadhead than they initially assume.

🧪 Yeast

Breadhead can sniff yeast to temporarily grow bigger and stronger.

It doesn't last forever.

It's essentially a temporary boost.

The more yeast he gets into his system, the more massive and powerful he can become for a while.

🤝 Mel

Breadhead agrees with basically all of Mel's plans.

Not because he carefully analyzes them.

Not because he thinks they're strategically brilliant.

His reasoning is essentially:

"Why not?"

If Mel wants to do something, Breadhead is usually down.

This makes him a very easy person for Mel to drag into ridiculous situations.

💔 Ken's wife

Breadhead knows about Ken's ex-wife.

He knows what happened.

He knows the history.

But he doesn't bring it up.

It's one of the few things Breadhead understands should probably be left alone.

🪝 Mud

Breadhead and Mud are... fine.

There's no huge hatred between them.

There's no particularly deep bond either.

They're just family.

Mud carried Breadhead around when he was little, so Breadhead obviously remembers him, but their relationship is mostly casual.

🍞 Where he sleeps

Breadhead sleeps inside wooden bread storage boxes, like the ones used to store loaves.

It's basically his version of a bed.

He climbs inside, curls up, and sleeps.

💰 His morality

Breadhead doesn't particularly care about the morality of the family's work.

Someone gets cemented?

Someone gets tortured?

Someone did something terrible?

Breadhead's response is basically:

"Who cares what they did? As long as we get paid."

He's not necessarily cruel because of this.

He just doesn't spend much time thinking about morality.

To him, the important things are simple:

Family. Money. Food. Fun.

👃 The booger problem

Breadhead picks his nose.

A lot.

And he has absolutely no shame about what happens afterward.

He'll wipe the booger on nearby people or objects.

His favorite victim is usually:

Mud.

Mud absolutely fucking hates it.

Breadhead considers this completely normal behavior.

🧱 The core of Breadhead

Breadhead is a weird contradiction.

He's a simple-minded, loving bread golem who can play piano better than anyone in the district...

...and he's also completely willing to beat someone into the ground because Ken told him to.

He's not philosophical.

He's not particularly ambitious.

He's just Breadhead.

And as long as his family is safe, he's happy.

MELANCHOLY HILL Physical Appearance

Melancholy Hill has smooth, vibrant blue skin and a slender, elongated human figure. Her face is relatively narrow, with a small nose and a subtle mouth that contributes to her quiet, somewhat sorrowful expression.

Her eyes are large and pale, with bright red pupils. These pupils have an unnatural ability to change size: they can shrink into extremely tiny dots or expand dramatically until they cover her entire eyes. This gives her expressions a potentially unsettling and unpredictable quality.

Her hair is orange, with a slightly muted, warm tone. It is gathered into a small ponytail on top of her head, secured with a pink hair tie. Two pointed strands extend upward from the ponytail, while longer locks fall along the sides of her face, framing her cheeks. A thin strand of hair also hangs forward near the left side of her face.

Body and Clothing

Her body is covered only by bandages, which wrap around her torso and limbs. The bandages are light grayish-beige and overlap in layers, creating visible folds and horizontal wrapping patterns across her body. They follow her slender figure without being accompanied by a conventional shirt, pants, or other clothing.

She wears orange gloves on both hands. The gloves have a rounded, padded appearance, with defined fingers and a slightly oversized shape. Her arms are slim and elongated, and her hands are held in expressive poses.

She also wears large, dark-colored boots with a heavy, rounded design. Their size contrasts with her slender legs and gives her overall appearance a distinctive, stylized shape.

Blood and Distinctive Traits • Blood: Melancholy Hill has black blood, an unusual characteristic that adds to her mysterious nature. • Eyes: Her red pupils can contract into tiny dots or expand to fill the entire surface of her pale eyes. • Skin: Her skin is blue, contrasting with her orange hair and the muted bandages covering her body.

MUD Mud — Appearance & Abilities Mud is a lanky, undead-looking green character from Gaslight District, with an exaggerated, almost cartoonish anatomy. Head: His skull is visibly exposed, with his green skin stretched over a very thin, elongated head. He has enormous, bulging eyes with pale sclera and small red pupils, giving him a permanently startled, unsettling expression. His mouth is filled with small, crooked teeth. Neck: His neck is extremely thin, and the underlying bones of his neck are visibly exposed, connecting his head to his body. Clothing: He wears a worn brown/olive trench coat, a dark shirt, and a red tie. His outfit is completed by a battered gray-brown fedora with a red band. Body: He's unusually tall and thin, with very long arms and oversized hands. His green skin has an irregular, corpse-like appearance. Legs: His legs are mismatched and skeletal-looking. One leg has a normal-looking green/organic structure, while his left foot is almost entirely skeletal, consisting primarily of exposed bones. Feet: Both feet are unusually large and cartoonishly shaped, covered by oversized, worn gray footwear. Overall appearance: His combination of exposed bone, sickly green skin, huge eyes, ragged clothing, and bizarre proportions makes him look like a strange undead gentleman rather than a conventional zombie.

BREADHEAD Breadhead — Appearance Breadhead is a strange, cartoonish humanoid character whose head is essentially a giant loaf of bread. Head: His entire head is made from a large, elongated loaf of bread, with a golden-tan cut surface forming his face. The bread has a darker brown crust running over the top and around the sides. Eyes: He has two large, bulging white eyes with tiny reddish pupils, giving him a permanently goofy and slightly unsettling expression. Mouth: His mouth is wide and filled with rows of small teeth. His tongue is a long baguette, sticking out from inside his mouth. Body: He has a short, rounded, pale-tan torso. Jacket: The brown material around his arms and upper body is his small brown jacket. It's noticeably short compared with his extremely long arms, leaving much of his torso exposed. Arms: His arms are extremely long and thin, with brown jacket sleeves extending almost all the way down them. Hands/feet: His hands and feet are a lighter tan/orange color and have a simplified, almost dough-like appearance. Legs: He has long, skinny black pants, with his legs positioned in a slightly awkward, crooked stance.

KEN THE BUTCHER He has a large, round, heavyset body with a broad torso and enormous belly. His skin is a pale blue-green/turquoise, with darker green shading around his limbs, face, neck, and body folds. His physique is bulky and soft-looking, with thick arms, huge hands, and broad legs. His head is tall and oddly shaped, with a butcher knife embedded vertically in the top of his head. The knife appears to have been driven deeply enough to leave a severe wound, giving the impression that his head has been seriously damaged. His face has small, glowing red eyes, heavy green brow ridges, and an enormous, unsettling grin filled with rows of uneven, yellowish teeth. His cheeks and lower face are thick and rounded. His enormous hands are held together in front of his stomach, with his fingers interlocked. His body has various dark and reddish marks across the skin, especially around his right arm and lower torso. He wears only a worn, off-white butcher’s apron, held up by two straps over his shoulders. The apron is heavily wrinkled, stained, scuffed, and damaged, and it covers his torso while leaving much of his lower body exposed. His backside is visible, including his buttocks, and he wears simple brown shoes.

HEIGHT Breadhead — the tallest by far. He's squatting down here, yet his body still occupies almost the entire height of the lineup. If he were standing at full height, he'd be giant-sized compared with the others. Mud — second tallest. He's substantially shorter than Breadhead at his full height, but still noticeably taller than Ken and Mel. Ken — third tallest. He's shorter than Mud, but clearly larger/taller than Mel. Mel — the shortest of the four.

🌆 The Gaslight District The entire story takes place within the Gaslight District, a massive, decaying city/region that has existed long after humanity disappeared. Humanity has been gone for eons. Nobody alive remembers humans as a civilization anymore. What remains are ruins, artifacts, stories, and distorted legends. The species that inherited the world are the Rotlings. Rotlings aren't simply "undead humans." They're their own people and have their own society, cultures, jobs, gangs, businesses, relationships, religions, and hierarchies. And most importantly: Rotlings cannot die. Not from age. Not from disease. Not from violence. Not from being destroyed. Death simply isn't a normal part of their existence. The closest thing they have to permanent removal is cementing someone down and throwing them into the ocean. It's less "killing" them and more making them disappear somewhere nobody can reach them. Which makes the ocean absolutely fucking terrifying. 🩸 Mel — The Human Mel is the exception. She's an actual human being, with black blood. She can die. And almost nobody knows this. The only person who knows the truth is her adoptive father: Ken. To everyone else, Mel is simply another person living in the Gaslight District. Her existence is especially dangerous because of the prophecy concerning the human. The prophecy has become something people fear so deeply that many Rotlings would rather destroy everything around them than risk allowing the prophecy to happen. And the funniest/most horrifying part is that most of them don't even know what the prophecy actually means. They just know: Human = bad. 🔥 The Afterlife The world isn't just the Gaslight District. There are seven rings of Hell, followed by: Paradise Lost → Heaven Each is its own realm with its own inhabitants, rules, and hierarchy. Hell isn't necessarily somewhere you "go after dying," either, because Rotlings don't normally die. That makes the existence of Hell and Heaven much stranger. It raises questions like: Who actually lives there? Who built these realms? Can Rotlings enter them? What happens to something that can't die? Why does Heaven exist if humanity has been gone for eons? What exactly is Paradise Lost? And potentially most importantly: Why is there still a cosmic system designed around beings that supposedly no longer exist? 🪽 Angels Angels aren't beautiful humans with wings. They're vultures with halos. And they're fucking dangerous. They watch. They don't necessarily interfere with the mortal world constantly, but their presence is enough to make people uncomfortable because nobody knows exactly what they're observing for. Their halos make them immediately recognizable as something higher in the cosmic hierarchy. Mother Angel The Mother Angel is essentially the apex of the angels. She's: Much larger More intelligent More aware More dangerous She's not simply "the biggest angel." She's something closer to the thing the other angels ultimately revolve around. ✨ The Virtues There are the Seven Virtues, corresponding to the seven deadly sins. But there are also Guard Virtues. The Virtues aren't necessarily friendly divine superheroes. They're powerful entities with their own purposes and responsibilities. Their existence gives the world another major power structure outside of the Rotlings, gangs, Hell, and angels. And ordinary people are understandably fucking terrified of getting involved with them. 🏚️ Society Despite all of this cosmic insanity, the Gaslight District still has an almost weirdly normal society. People have: Jobs Businesses Gangs Money Landlords Neighborhoods Bars Shops Criminal organizations Social hierarchies Personal drama You can have someone working a completely mundane job while, somewhere above the city, an angel is watching from a rooftop. That's a big part of what makes the setting interesting: The supernatural isn't an interruption to everyday life. It's everyday life. 🔪 Violence Because Rotlings don't die, violence has a very different meaning. Someone getting shot isn't necessarily a tragedy. Someone getting beaten isn't necessarily permanent. Even extreme physical destruction doesn't necessarily solve anything. So the most feared punishment isn't necessarily the most violent one. It's disappearance. Someone gets restrained, attached to cement, and thrown into the ocean. And because they can't die, there's no certainty that they'll ever be gone. They could remain down there indefinitely. That could even create an entire cultural fear around "the drowned."

The Black Hand The Rotlings worship the Black Hand. Long ago, the Black Hand granted them immortality. In doing so, they abandoned God, and God subsequently abandoned them. So their immortality is essentially a deal with the thing that replaced God. Nobody knows exactly what the Black Hand is—or at least, different groups have different beliefs about it. The important part is that the Rotlings genuinely believe: The Black Hand saved them from death. And they've built their entire civilization around that belief. 🩸 Rotling Society Rotlings are violent immortal beings. They kill each other constantly because killing someone isn't necessarily permanent. They drink. They party. They fight. They indulge themselves. They pursue pleasure constantly. And because they can't naturally die, there's almost no biological reason for them to develop the same fear of violence that humans had. A bar fight can turn into someone getting completely destroyed, and everyone else might just keep drinking. Someone getting thrown through a wall isn't necessarily an emergency. Someone getting stabbed isn't necessarily a tragedy. Someone disappearing into the ocean is different. That's permanent removal. So the Gaslight District has developed a bizarre moral system where horrific violence can be treated casually, while the act of making someone unreachable is one of the most serious punishments imaginable. ✝️ God vs. the Black Hand This also creates a really interesting theological divide: God abandoned the Rotlings. The Black Hand did not. At least, that's what the Rotlings believe. That makes the existence of Heaven, Paradise Lost, the angels, and the Virtues incredibly uncomfortable.