[DL] Twain Research..

[Ronald Conner <marshal_dude@excite.com>]

First off let me say that twain is alive and well in the Deadlands universe.
He is in fact mentioned in the River O' Blood source book on the second
page.  The author makes refrences to him as one possible author of the book
but the Epitaph couldn't afford him.

Here's what else I found in my wanderings...
Samuel Langhorne Clemens


a.k.a. Mark Twain 


1835-1910
So at the time of the reckoning he would have been about 28.
and currently he would be 41 or 42 depending on your campaign...Apparently I
was very wrong before.

In Nevada Clemens was caught up for a time in the speculative fever of the
mining country; his letters home were full of accounts of investments and
prospecting trips. When none of his ventures turned out well, he became a
reporter on the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, beginning in 1862. It
was while working on this paper that he really found himself as a humorist,
realizing that his sporadic journalistic activities had been no more than
amateurish exercises preparing him for real achievements

In 1863, while reporting on meetings of the Nevada legislature, he first
used the pseudonym Mark Twain, derived from a call by Mississippi boatmen
sounding the depth of the river. In 1864 he went to San Francisco, where he
worked for several newspapers.

Clemens became part owner of the Buffalo Express in 1869, married Olivia
Langdon of Elmira, New York in 1870, and served for a time as a newspaper
editor in Buffalo and a column conductor in the Galaxy. He soon severed his
connections with the newspaper and the magazine, moved to Hartford, and
devoted all his time to writing and lecturing.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876); Life on the Mississippi (1883); The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884); Pudd'nhead Wilson (1884), which told
of Hannibal and the river life he had known in youth; The Prince and the
Pauper (1882) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), the
first of which dealt seriously and the second humorously with historical
materials; and A Tramp Abroad (1880), a travel book.


This is all taken from
http://www.robinsonresearch.com/LITERATE/AUTHORS/Twain.htm

From this we can deduce several things about twain in deadlands. 
1. he does exist.
2. he is still a writer and a somewhat famous one despite the fact that most
of his celebrated books are yet to be written at all.
3. twain was a product of his climate.  He ridiculed the rich pompous fat
cats that ruled the country after the war and tended to fight for the
working man.  

So possible locations for Twain are Lost angels, Hartford, Virginia City, or
the confederacy, most likly the mississippi river area.

Now I havn't finished the river o blood so I don't know if he gets mentioned
again but he could be playing an important part as a newpaper editor or
writer somewhere around the country.

Twain was also known for his travles abroad, to the holy lands, the old
world and to hawaii.  So in his wandering we can assume that the man has
aquired some knowledge of the reckoning and it's effects on natural life. 
Twain may have some skills of his own, either huckster, blessed or maybe
something else.  I'm not entirely sure he couldn't have created a branch of
magic all his own.  The man was that charismatic.  I'm actually thinking of
developeing a new character class just based on Mark Twain.

I'll update more later..
Ron Conner






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