Bartholomew Reines

Concept: Bad Sensei

AKA: Bart Reines doesn’t really have anything in the way of a nickname.

Desc: Bart is a fit fifty years old. Kind of squat. Military style haircut. Back of his neck looks like a pack of franks. Tends to get a bit red in the face (like a sugar beet) when he’s upset.  He’s got some actual muscle and while his knees trouble him occasionally, it’s not something he can’t muscle through with a couple of Aleve. Has the voice of a Drill Instructor. Which is interesting, because according to his actual service record, he never rose above PFC. Has a Marine Corp tattoo.

History: Bart has can-do attitude. And you know, you can get pretty far with can-do attitude. The problem is, that it might be ALL that he has.  American Martial Arts schools have varying levels of pseudo-mystical bullshit. Some have very low levels of bullshit. Others are fucking swimming in it.  Bart’s school is pretty close to THAT end of the spectrum.

  It’s the little things that give him away. He hasn’t sparred with anyone over a green belt in over a decade.  Doesn’t compete. Normally has his senior students teach most of his classes.  He’s written a dozen books about incredibly arcane chi exercises and martial arts forms.  Most of which, Bart made up from whole cloth.  He pressures his student to buy his books. (All of which are self-published on LULU.)

     Bart isn’t a terrible person. At least he doesn’t think he is.  He offers free classes at the YWCA for women who have endured domestic violence.  He’s also very outspoken about his younger student using their “Superior Knowledge” to bully other students.  So he’s not an utter asshole.

    However, Bart is a much better business man than he is a martial arts teacher.  He’s out of practice, Gets winded easily, and has bought into a LOT of the pseudo-mysticism of the Martial Arts world. As a result, he is perhaps more of a danger to his students than a useful mentor.  

Attitude: Ok. You've just seen how that works kids. Do you get it? OUTSTANDING!

Skills: To his actual credit, He has a middling pile of dots in Brawl, and 1-2 dots in a couple of different martial arts. Any PC who might be looking for an IC mentor will likely find that they actually know as much or more than their erstwhile teacher does. Bart has a pretty good radar for this, and he’ll find some reason not to teach them.  Bart is pretty good at handling the business of running his school and still knows his way around the weapons he was trained with.  In fact, he’s probably better with a knife now than he is with his fists.  He’s in relatively good shape speed and strength-wise.  Although his stamina is for shit these days.

Gear: Bart tends to trust his own abilities, so he doesn’t tend to carry a weapon.  His normal carry gear is a smartphone, his wallet, and a very small pocket-knife.  He’s gotten very used to his phone and dictates a lot of random ideas into it.

Home: Bart owns his own home. He isn’t exactly commitment-phobic and yet he is skittish about cohabitating with his current girlfriend Kitty. His divorce in his early twenties from Barbara soured him on marriage pretty badly. Kitty is trying to be understanding.

Circle: Bart has a few marine buddies, knows his neighbors fairly well, and is generally well thought of by most of his students...At least until they get a real taste of the decent teaching.

Story Uses:

“Ok, break off into pairs and spar for the next 5 minutes.”

You can always take this guy and add some more competency to him and turn him into an actual mentor of some sort. Even without being all that great as a martial artist, He can still be useful in a tight situation and is NOT at all scared to get into those tight situations.

“Trust me. That’s the way Chi works...”

Well. It’s always possible that maybe Bart knows something and maybe he’s right on the edge of discovering some new art or some new Chi-Gung work.  You just never know.

Connections:

* Both Jack Marston and Joseph Cartolano took classes with Bart and determined very quickly that he was full of shit.

* Patricia "Carnie" Pitt took one of his Self defense courses at the Y, and then came back and did a story. Knows that other martial arts schools in town may not have a lot of respect for him, but Carnie has gotten some actual use out of some of the moves she learned. He's great on camera.

* Lawton Krase used to be a pretty faithful student.  That ought to tell you something right there.