Denton Salpicadera's page

Denny -- his close friends call him "Sal" -- grew up in a bad part of Jersey City and had a rough childhood. Particularly so since he was brighter than the average neighborhood kid, which seemed to make him a particularly attractive target for bullies and thugs. Of necessity he learned how to defend himself reasonably well. He's rarely seen without a walking stick which, if it comes to a fight, he wields in a vaguely Eastern manner... an amalgam of moves from every questionable Kung-Fu/Shaolin movie and TV show he's ever watched.

Growing up in a deeply religious extended family, Denny was forced into extensive study, including learning virtually every language in which any religious text was ever written. Perhaps because of that -- an aversion therapy of sorts -- or maybe his enjoyment of bad martial arts movies, Denny developed into something of a philosophical Taoist: You can't have good without evil, life is a question of balance, and so on.

In the hopes of improving his lot in life, Denny started studying nuclear engineering. He thought the industry was going to rebound, and he wanted to surf that wave and make the big bucks. In the process he started becoming fascinated with fusion research... including cold fusion. As he read more about the latter, he got drawn farther and farther into pseudoscience and discredited concepts like Maxwell's Demon.

As time went on, prepping for a high-paying career became less of a motivation than simply wanting -- no, needing -- to learn and to chase his pet theories. But no respectable academic institutions would go anywhere near what they considered pseudoscience.

None, except for Miskatonic University... who dropped a scholarship in his lap even though he couldn't remember having applied there.

So, Denny journeyed to Arkham, Massachusetts to pursue his questionable quest for knowledge... or perhaps "quest for questionable knowledge."

And all heck broke loose.

Establishing shot (initial pre-game post)
Deus Machina - The Last Grimoire gameplay thread

As a quick summary, Denny accepted a scholarship at Miskatonic University, where he met the painfully cute but thoroughly annoying Allison Hazel.

He had hopes of researching his own pseudo-scientific theories concerning Maxwell's Demon -- I envisioned his thought process along the lines of El Cazador de la Bruja, in which some "supernatural" powers are in fact simply a practical application of Maxwell's thought experiment.

But he quickly became embroiled in a battle against... what, monsters from other planes of existence? Extra-dimensional creatures? Inhabitants of other recursions? He never knew for sure, though Allison tried to explain it to him more than once.

Denton's a bright lad; a polyglot (in languages both human and digital) with an almost spooky ability to bend a computer to his will. (Not that he's a hacker; more like a "machine whisperer.") That he couldn't "get" what Allison tried to explain hinted that perhaps she didn't really want him to understand. As if there was some secret he wasn't supposed to know.

What he did know was that, with the aid of a sentient mystical tome, he and select schoolmates battled monstrosities of which others were blissfully aware. And that there were people -- like Allison and some of the university professors -- who researched and studied, maybe even understood what was going on.

Denny never actually performed any magic in that game; he's pretty much an ordinary college kid. All the mystical effects came by virtue of the sentient tome he'd been gifted. His book -- one of several -- were broken, incomplete. The missing pages could be added back... but finding them was the trick.

Sadly, the GM aborted the game early on.

Denny has now been recast for The Strange, and his new adventures will be a continuation of his experiences. Rumors of a page from an ancient tome being offered at a black-market auction in New York have reached the university. Normally Allison would be the one to look into such things, but she's tied up with something no one seems to want to talk about.

And Denny drew the short straw to take her place.

A quick search turned up some representative weights, in this case for a telescoping/extendable baton:

With the four different sizes, 21", 24", 26", 29", each baton weighs approximately 1 oz. per inch.

The quintessential (fixed, non-telescoping) nightstick was 26" in length:

The NYPD used to use two kinds... [the baton] that was used at night, was 26 inches long and called a night-stick, which is the origin of the word "nightstick"

On the assumption that a modern telescoping nightstick would roughly mimic the old standard, let's use the modern equivalent weight of 26 ounces.

While lengths can vary slightly according to individual taste, a "classic" hanbo is only nine inches longer than the definitive nightstick:

Traditionally, the hanbō was approximately three shaku or about 90 centimetres (35 in) long...

Weight varies depending on diameter and wood; a representative example:

Weight: Approx. 620 grams (about 22 oz.)

Thus a hanbo is lighter than, and only somewhat longer than, a nightstick. Based on this, I believe classifying it as a Light (one-handed or two-handed) weapon is appropriate.