The Black Campbell

For our Hollow Earth Expedition campaign, I decided to do some serious fan servicing in the creation of the “Sky Rats”, or the Foreign Volunteer Force aiding China against the Japanese. This is pre-Flying Tigers, mind you. It’s a hodge-podge of characters that work under the self-styled Colonel Trapp Sommers, a Clark Gable-esque American adventurer who is a bit rougharound the edges, but whose heart is in the right place; and Squadron Commander Joseph “Sky Captain” Sullivan — if you’ve seen the movie, you know who I mean.

Rounding out the FVF are a few characters from various movies and TV shows, as well as some homebrew ones (stats to follow…)

There’s LT Jake Cutter, former AA ball player recruited from his work flying for Pan Am and his drunken friend and mechanic Corky. And of course, his one-eyed dog, Jack. Rounding out the Sky Captain angle is Dexter Dearborn, the chief mechanic and tinkerer for the group, and the recently arrived in China Francesca “Frankie” Cooke, an adventuress fresh from India.

Other characters that haven’t been fleshed out yet include “Injun Joe” Malloy, a supposedly half Comanche, half Irish (really, all America mutt) warrior from Oklahoma (that much is true); Alan “Tommy” Gunn, a former RAF pilot who isn’t half the stick he brags of being; “Blackie” Washington, a black pilot from Mississippi who has been roaming the world flying and fighting for the underdog; Ling Wu, the first Chinese woman to fly combat missions (there was an actual female Chinese Air Force pilot about this time…) and — of course — karate ass-kicker.