Dietrich Lintz

Dietrich Lintz, reporter for The Brimstone Bee, was born in Saxony in 1843 but his family fled six years after he was born in order to avoid possible retribution for his father’s role in the Revolution of 1848, settling in the cosmopolitan port of Galveston Texas. Galveston’s German community was known to generally oppose slavery alongside its Jewish and Mexican ones, and during the Civil War a younger Lintz, who had been drawn to journalism, found himself jailed more than once for penning “traitorous pro-Union propaganda.” If asked he’ll proudly admit that it was indeed pro-Union, grinning as he does so. “Like father like son,” he muses.

After the war ended he continued his career as a reporter, acting as an ally, and advocate for the new freedmen of Galveston for almost a decade, writing in favor of Wright Cuney’s unionization and educational efforts. Eventually though, Lintz decided to follow the example of many great journalists before him to roam the frontier as an independent writer. Unfortunately, most of his articles failed to find a well-selling audience, leaving Deitrich to live a hand-to-mouth existence for a while. As it happened, the down on his luck muckraker found himself in Brimstone on his way to Denver the same day HH was lamenting not being able to cover the entire town anymore. Seeing a possible steady paycheck until he could rebuild his funds, Dietrich penned a report on a recent gunfight in one night that Heston adored. Quickly the German-American went from a freelancer to the Brimstone Bee’s second full time reporter, and soon after found himself deciding to stay, the money flowing in from the mines and enriching the local economy certainly helping.

An unapologetic activist in staunch favor of racial and social equality, while Lintz won’t outright lie or ignore the facts, he shows little hesitation in voicing his own opinions and judgements in his articles, unlike his editor, and his stances really shine in his personal editorials and opinion pieces. He actually encourages dissenting opinions to write in response to his own, but doing so invites the man to launch back in turn. There are a handful of people who read the paper just for his ongoing feud with another resident by the name of Joshua Blackburn over the issue of Free Silver.

Dieterich is a slightly short, middle-aged man in a tweed suit and bowler whose rotund figure betrays his love of good food in large quantities, the occasional stay flake from a meal in his large, blonde mustache doing so on the off chance it doesn’t. In contrast to the fire that sometimes flies from his pen, Lintz is polite and slightly quiet when spoken to, and is fairly quick to make friends with those he deems good people. Although, given how cutthroat Brimstone can be, that number is lower than one might expect. The man is a bachelor who’s never expressed any desire to find a wife, though recently he became the guardian of a girl named Sofía Alcabú y Saelices after both her parents perished in a mining accident.

Dietrich’s a strong believer in the The Fourth Estate, saying a free press is what helps a country stay free. He’s railed against anybody he perceives to be abusing the public trust or the legal system in fiery op eds, refusing to “abide corruption.” While he shys away from violence, not even carrying a gun, the man has shown remarkable bravery and backbone when it comes to his writing and refusing to back down on potentially sensitive matters concerning the wealthy and powerful. Twice already people “representing certain important individuals” in Brimstone have paid him a visit, and twice he’s stared them down and politely asked them to leave, Heston (somewhat reluctantly) backing him up as he did so... Before Lintz promptly collapsed afterward once they were out of view,

So far nothing else has come of this tendency of his, but some cynical folk think it’s only a matter of time before the muckraker pisses somebody with money off enough for an attempt to be made on the Bee’s printing press… Or his life. If circumstances do come to that the paper might need some hired muscle of its own lest HH finally cave or the Brimstone Bee even potentially stop buzzing for good.