Forsie Hark

> *“That’s what dice loaders get.”*
>
> Forsie Hark after unloading 5 bullets into Cagney Kramer

Forsie Hark's mugshot from 1858

**Forsie Hark** was an outlaw killed in a shootout just before the time of the city's first evacuation due to the new outbreak of plague.

## History

### Early Life

On September 28 in 1835, “Forsie” was born the eldest son of his parents, the Harks, in the European countryside. He was reportedly an angry child who could only be satisfied with material rewards, though showed promise as a functional equestrian. At some point, while visiting a scrapyard to salvage some parts, Forsie fell and scraped his eye on metal, resulting in a limp eyelid and a permanent scar but no loss of vision.

Once the country boy had visited the city, he was dead-set on an urban lifestyle, leaving home on his own even as his family struggled to work as his mother was pregnant with his brother. Other than the rare letter, he never saw his family again, never meeting his brother and later, half-sister.

When he moved to the city in 1851 he became a rentable stagecoach and honed his woodcrafting skills, as well as his gambling to afford cheap facsimiles of the city dandy clothes he so loved. As he did so, he became a lover of the arts, fantastical literature, and of male fashion, considering those who though less of it were philistines. Eventually his efforts in woodshopping would succeed in the creation of his high-quality, lovingly homemade carriage he named “Eden”, carving it on the back end of the vehicle.

Forsie soon became embroiled in organized crime being held in the city, coming to know many underworld figures but never truly befriending any of them. He also bought a .30 Devisme percussion revolver and carried it everywhere, with an occasional knife or two hidden in his boots or waistcoat for good measure. His criminal career was lucrative, however, his average amount of money was low due to him constantly spending his ill-gotten money to present himself as a dandy.

### Criminal Career

Later that year on November 26, Forsie had perceived himself to have been dishonored by and challenged three separate men to a legal duel in Belvedere Park. All the duels were to take place immediately after the other, only to stop if he lost any of the duels. All three men agreed, but they were successfully shot dead by Forsie within 15 minutes. Since the duels were legally binding, Forsie was not charged with murder. The local newspapers reported on this event.

The next year on July 10, Forsie, his only friend Marcus Eschuanforth, and another associate beat up a group of men at the horse racing stadium due to a disagreement over the betting pools. All 5 of the victims were beaten unconscious, then hidden near the horse stables, one bleeding out from his injuries after the attackers left the scene. Forsie was not immediately caught for this crime but it would later be attributed to him due to his trend of violent crimes and lesser assaults.

On March 9, 1854, Forsie had been rented out to drive a wedding carriage, but took a sharp turn on the Crooked Boulevard and the carriage capsized, killing the groom among others in it. Forsie himself was mostly uninjured and blamed for the accident. Due to the boulevard's unusual construction and history of similar accidents in the past, charges were eventually dropped in favor of blaming the architecture. He never spoke of the incident any further.

Later this year, he would begin seeing his common employer Ilse Naber behind her elderly husband's back. He would also win more legal duels to the ire of the public. Eventually, he would come to start shooting at people as if in a duel, even they had rejected his challenge.

Soon after the new year, on January 2, Forsie broke into the home of Sir Naber and hid behind the curtain in the music room. When his back was turned, Forsie murdered the old man with a single stab wound to the back. As he left, he ran into a maid and beat her unconscious and hid her in a bathroom. Forsie later collected a privy Ilse from the home and left.

On April 18, Forsie participated in a poker game at the Belvedere Tavern, eventually losing and proceeding to assault the winner, eventually taking the fight out of tavern doors and into the street until he was apprehended. Due to Forsie's increasing notoriety and brazen crimes, the charges from his other attributed crimes, including larceny and excluding Naber's murder, were added to his recent assault charge. Though the years added up to a substantial life sentence, Forsie was eventually bailed out by his associates with only several months of time served.

March 30 of 1856, Forsie Hark, and associates Valentino Bassory, Cagney Kramer, Felix Manicci, and Cassius Bonnefoy among 22 others were apprehended during a police raid that caught them in the act of managing gambling rings, including cockfights. A shootout occurred and 5 policemen were injured and 2 were killed, though Cassius was killed as well. Facing 20 years to life, Forsie and his still living associates were smuggled out of jail.

In the middle of May that year, Forsie challenged Marcus to a street race in their carriages, to reach the city fountain near Belvedere Park. In an attempt to cut down on time, Forsie did not wait for pedestrians to cross the street and ran over a total of eight people before the strain broke his carriage's wheel and came to a lopsided rest against a street vendor. Before he could dismount from the carriage, nearby civilians restrained him until the police arrived. Despite beatings and intense interrogation, Forsie would not give up Marcus' name or possible location. Later, he bribed the officers who impounded his carriage and escaped further jail time.

During the summer of 1858, Forsie Hark accused fellow crime boss Cagney Kramer of using loaded dice during a losing gamble and challenged him to a duel, which Cagney refused. On August 6, as Cagney drank and smoked in a private room inside the Arbonne Inn's bar, Forsie bypassed security then immediately opened fire without a single word. He emptied his 5 shots all at once, a habit of his, then allowed himself to be apprehended by both Cagney's attendants and the civilians and staff outside. Cagney died instantly and Forsie was unusually cooperative, relative only to his previous arrests. Though his only comment on the matter was “That’s what dice loaders get.”

Forsie was sentenced to 5 years in prison, such a low sentence handed down due to Forsie, considered a lower priority criminal, inadvertently solving the police's problem with Cagney Kramer, a higher profile crime boss. Behaving in prison allowed him out on parole within 18 months.

Months after he was released, he began conspiring with Marcus to plan a train robbery for a fortune that could last them a long time as they also plan to leave the country. At 2 PM on January 23 of 1860, the two detonated TNT on the third car of a train while on horseback. The blast was not strong enough to open the car wide enough for boarding, giving away their position with no silver lining. Marcus was detained while hiding at his brother's house in the city outskirts while Forsie evaded police. Marcus broke under the beatings and intense interrogation and accepted a deal to testify against Forsie once he was captured, this fact being published in papers where Forsie himself could read it.

### Shootout and Death

Still seeking to escape the country with a fortune to support himself, Forsie planned a one-man heist of the Valerin Bank in the upper class district of the city.

In the afternoon of February 2, garbed in a shabby coat and bowler hat, he steered his carriage in front of Valerin and entered. Instead of a note, Forsie pointed his revolver at the teller and made his demands. After the vaults were emptied, Forsie took 3 bank-goers, newlyweds and their best man, as hostages to hold the loot as he rushed them out of the bank at gunpoint and into the carriage. The alarm was rung as Forsie began driving the carriage again and just a few minutes later, several police carriages were trailing behind Eden. Within the first 10 minutes of the chase, Forsie had already spent all 5 of his bullets, only managing to incapacitate one pursuing vehicle.

Forsie continued to ride down the city's Main Street into the outskirts, but trying to juke the police, did a U-turn and charged back at them to scare them out of his way. Instead, constables took the chance and began opening fire; 5 shots were returned, only 2 hitting Forsie. The first one pierced his heart and the second, his thigh, causing him to fall off the carriage onto the street. His carriage would swerve and crash close to him, killing his hostages.

The outlaw had not died instantly, nor on impact with the street, yet only lived long enough to call out “ma... ma...!” and expiring. His glasses had been literally blown off his face and were lost.

The scene was subject to mass looting before and during the Bubonic plague evacuations. The stolen money was only half-recovered by the constables, the rest dispersed among the mob. Photographers were at the scene to document the event for newspapers and police reports. Forsie Hark's body was autopsied and buried in what was to become The Yard.

After the catastrophe, it made front headlines with a photograph of Forsie's body in front of the carriage with the dead bride's wedding dress billowing out. An obituary was printed a few days later after journalists had returned from interviewing Forsie's family, including a photo from his autopsy aside it.

## Trivia

* Forsie Hark is named after Lord Hank Fieron and his abridged counterpart Lancelord Hark from the *Torture Tower Doesn't Sleep* trilogy. His appearance is evocative of Hank's.
	+ Forsie's unrepentant disregard for others' lives and sadism is also evocative of Hank's Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome.
* The nickname Forsie is a distortion of his middle name, Ford. Originally it was “Fordsie”, but eventually people stopped enunciating the D.
* Forsie is farsighted and needs reading glasses. He wears them all day instead of only when reading to accentuate his looks.
* His eye scar and half-lid does not blind him on his right side.
* Despite seeming to fit most descriptions of serial killers, Hark was never cruel to animals and in fact had an affinity for horses in particular. He had a strong contempt and disregard for humanity, however.