Ethan Kozlowski

"Ethan Kozlowski was born February 9th, 1853 in a barn many miles out of what would become Des Moines, Iowa. At the time his folks were travelling, Józef Kozlowski, his Polish father who'd moved to America at a young age and was intent on moving with his wife of 6 years, Maria Walsh (An irish woman who'd married only 6 months into her new life in the states), to new oppurtunity where they could hopefully raise their impending family. This location was, by all accounts, an unintended stop due to a peristent husband optimism on how travel with his pregnant wife would go over. As it would turn out though, Des Moines was not meant to be. At age 3 the family was packing up and heading east without much to their name. Well-meaning fathers and loans apparently don't mix well. With another kid on the way, the Kozlowski's set up outside of Gettysburg, PA.

Ethan spent his childhood being slower then the other boys, frequently being picked on, and straight-up not having a good time. He had a pet rat much to the dismay of many people, and spent a lot of time messing with farm equipment as the fall guy in the other kids ideas of what fun was. Ever the optimist though, Ethan would always greet every day with excitement and confidence. And then the Civil War happened. His father was already attempting a military career, which meant that Ethan had already been learning how to keep the house together to help his mother. Eventually his Uncle showed up to help around the house, Uncle Devon was always cool in Ethan's eyes.

Ethan was unfortunate enough to encounter the Weird of the world at a young age. He was 10 years old. The battle of Gettysburg was nearing its end. And Ethan was more then aware that his father was fighting. And the anxiety was killing the child. He snuck out that night. He stole his uncle's horse and rode like the wind to where the fighting had been going down. He slipped past any onlookers, frantically checking bodies as he went, and eventually found his way into the medical tent where he finally found his father. Little did he know that his father missing an arm was the least of his worries, and that it was about to get so much worse. Ethan still has nightmares about it sometimes. The shouting, the shooting, the dead getting up to maul their former brothers-in-arms. He almost died that night, nearly mauled by one of those shambling corpses before managing to get an unbelievably lucky stab with his fathers knife. Józef wasn't near as lucky as his son. He had limped his way out of the medical tent, grabbed his revolver, and was intent on making sure his son made it to safety without a scratch. They both got far, but Józef didn't notice when a shambler was crawling for his legs, and he certainly wasn't preapred to get eaten that night. Ethan was already running like hell. Didn't even realize his father wasn't following him until he finally caught a breather. He has an especially bad nightmare about his father coming back as one of those things. The thought is unshakable.

From that day forward Ethan vowed that he wasn't gonna let people get eaten, or mauled, or whatever unsavory thing. There had to be other things out there. Because in his young mind, if dead people can walk again, anything can happen. And he was gonna kill it. He was gonna kill it for his dad. He was tired of being too slow, or too weak, or too anything else that was holding him back. And that idea dug roots very very deep into his brain. It started with just trainin real hard and thinking of fancy ways to fght monsters. And what normally would've been a childhood obsession, for Ethan it became his life. His teenage years were a continuation of this drive. He'd bug his dads military buddies to train him He actively sought out the weird and used his fathers old hunting rifle to do any job that involved a beast. It was rarely something actually weirder then an angry bear or large rat, but he was always ready. The birth and gradual legitimisation of new science showed potential and he quickly followed his heart in the most logical direction. And that direction was paved with Ghost Rock.

Ethan apprenticed with an excentric man who was obsessed with music and how it could influence greater sciences as a whole. It wasn't the intended course of study but it was a start into the world of this New Science. The idea of sound having uses, and the idea of sound having power, was not only awesome, but gripping. And when Ethan learned the concept of vibrations and high frequencies? Well he had to delve deeper. Deep enough he almost lost a hand testing out one of his earliest High Frequency experiments. During his apprenticeship he continued reading The Tombstone Epitaph, his personal favorite since its publication. These people knew what was up. These people believed similarly to what he did. And they actively looked for weird things in all corners of America. With a shoddy understanding of the Sciences that would gradually stablize as he moved on with his life, he ended his apprenticeship after a year of study and was determined to work for the Epitaph.

Nowadays Ethan Kozlowski is one of the Epitaphs lesser known ""reporters"" he mainly goes after weird things and writes about his experience tracking it and hopefully killing it. Of course he's edited it appropriatley as to not get pulled into a dark alley by men in black dusters or Ranger with ten gallon hats. Frequently he implies that something may have to do with ""Starmen"" a concept he picked up after an exceptionally weird night involving peyote and hunting some humanoid thing that he's never truly figured out. Along the way he's pissed off a few things that may have been smart enough to remember him. And he's always been at odds with Natlie Mckenzie, his arch-rival in the reporting business. It's a friendly rivalry but a rivalry nonetheless.

So why Brimstone? More of an accident then anything else. He'd never really been out towards New Mexico, decided to see where the trails take him and hopefully learn more of whatever rascals, varmints, and of course critters lived in the Southwest. Brimstone is both a Boomtown he has heard of as well as an unexpected stop to hopefully spend some time and get some rest. With 2 dollars to his name, he's probably gonna be staying around for a while. Besides, Folks in Boomtowns always have the best stories. And where there's stories, and especailly where there's recently settled land, there's things stalking in the shadows. "