Joseph Marlowe

## Appearance

Joseph, prior to his death under mysterious circumstances, was just another forgettable face at a large university: fairly tall, average build, shaggy haircut, and the same five band t-shirts on rotation. Now, having literally died, he just looks a little worse than average. Being dead doesn’t really do much for your complexion, and after a few months of trying to cover that fact up with drugstore makeup, Joseph has given up even trying to hide the still-open wounds from his “incident”. He usually wears a scarf to cover the obvious gash on his throat, though.

Unfortunately for Joseph, about a week before his demise, he decided to try and dye his hair blonde, rationalizing: “Oh well, if I screw this up, it’s just hair. It’ll grow out eventually.” He *did* screw it up, and, contrary to popular belief, hair does *not* continue growing after death, so he’s permanently stuck with an orangey-yellow bleach damaged dye job.

## Personality

Before dying, Joseph was always a fairly pleasant, easy-going person. Although he could be a bit slow on the uptake in social situations, he was a good student who enjoyed having a small, close-knit group of friends and was fairly engaged with the campus community.

Now, though, Joseph is having a difficult time. He was always absent-minded, but something about being dead makes it almost impossible for him to turn in assignments on time (or at all). Between having failed half his classes last semester and being legally dead, Joseph’s job options post-college are limited, to say the least. Most of his friends have either graduated or fallen out of communication after too many texts left on read. In his last year of college, Joseph has finally found a spot in the party scene, though.

## Powers

Joseph isn’t quite alive, but he isn’t quite dead, either.

## Background

### Growing Up

Joseph was raised by his mother, who worked in HR with Dynasty International. He was fairly lonely as a child, only finally finding his first group of real friends in high school, when he joined the chess club and started working with the set crew for the student theater.

### Since Enrolling at Monsterhearts University

College was, for Joseph, the first time he really got to come out of his shell. As a freshman, he joined every club he could find, and then dropped out of all of them except the chess team, where he became friends with Django, who was also an RA on Joseph’s hall. Django’s friend group effectively “adopted” Joseph, who was the only first-year student to stick with the chess team. Django also encouraged Joseph to apply to work with Residential Life as a sophomore. Joseph is now a senior, and Django is in his final year in the MHU 1+4 Chemical Engineering program, but the two have remained fast friends.

Going into senior year was difficult for Joseph. In addition to the fact that most of his friends had graduated in the spring and that he had a senior thesis and the senior year job search to contend with, he also died and came back as a ghoul.

Being (un)dead has been rough for Joseph. He failed about half of his fall semester classes, abdicated his position as club president in the chess team to an underclassman, and abruptly quit his job as an RA, leading Residential Life to have to find him last-minute accommodations elsewhere on campus (the unfortunate result being Joseph, a 21-year-old senior, living with Xander, an 18-year-old freshman).

Now, Joseph is just desperately trying to pass enough classes that he can graduate and get away from Night Falls. He knows that someone or something out there was responsible for his death, and might still mean him some harm, but he’s significantly less interested in that than he is in figuring out how to get a job when you’re legally dead.

## Relationships

Before dying, Joseph used to have a crush on Sebastian Blythe. One of the few things Joseph remembers about his own death is seeing Sebastian shortly before dying, so up until the events of Session 0, Joseph had incorrectly assumed that Sebastian was an accessory in his murder and had been avoiding him for that reason.

Joseph is friends with Django Holomek, a chemical engineering graduate student.

Joseph's roommate is Xander Crossman.

Joseph is weirdly afraid of Iva Mavros for no clearly discernible reason.

## Group Affiliations

Joseph was briefly the president of the MHU chess team, after being a member of the club since his freshman year. He gave up the position to a minimally-qualified underclassman midway through fall semester when it became apparent that Joseph was not adequately fulfilling the role’s requirements. Most of the current chess club members see Joseph as being irresponsible and untrustworthy as a result.

Joseph was also an RA with MHU Residential Life for his sophomore and junior years. He was supposed to be a lead RA in his senior year, but no-notice quit that position as well several weeks into the fall semester, citing mental health difficulties to his supervisors. They were understanding and helped him to find housing elsewhere on campus, but most of Joseph’s former coworkers now see him as being unreliable, and the reason for his sudden departure from the role was (and maybe still is) a popular topic for workplace gossip among the RAs.

## Additional Scenes

Dead to the World. Xander encourages Joseph to seek help regarding his grades. Joseph does not react well.