Malcom Graves
The Outlaw
“We’re here for your gold, not your heads… so don’t nobody decide to be a hero.”
Biography
Malcolm Graves is a renowned mercenary, gambler, and thief—a wanted man in every city and empire he has visited. Even though he has an explosive temper, he possesses a sense of criminal honor, often enforced at the business end of his double-barreled shotgun Destiny. In recent years, he has reconciled a troubled partnership with Twisted Fate, and together they have prospered once more in the turmoil of Bilgewater’s criminal underbelly. Raised in the wharf alleys of Bilgewater, Malcolm Graves quickly learned how to fight and how to steal, skills that would serve him very well in all the years ahead. He could always find work hauling contraband up from the smugglers’ skiffs that came into the bay each night—with a tidy side-gig as hired muscle for various other unsavory local characters, as they went about their business in the port. But the alleys were small-time, and he craved more excitement than they could offer. Still little more than a youth, Graves stole a blunderbuss and smuggled himself aboard a ship headed out of Bilgewater to the Shuriman mainland, where he stole, lied, and gambled his way from place to place along the coast. Across the table of a high-stakes—and highly illegal—card game in Mudtown, Graves met a man who would change the course of his life, and his career: the trickster now known to many as Twisted Fate. Each immediately saw in the other the same reckless passion for danger and adventure, and together they formed a most lucrative partnership. Between Graves’ raw brawn and Twisted Fate’s ability to talk his way out of (and occasionally back into) almost any situation, they were an unusually effective team from the outset. Their mutual sense of roguish honor grew into genuine trust, and together they stole from the rich, swindled the foolish, handpicked skilled crews for specific jobs, and sold out their rivals whenever they could. Though at times Twisted Fate would blow all their shares and leave them with nothing to show for it, Graves knew that the thrill of some new escapade was always just around the corner… On the southern borderlands of Valoran, they set two renowned noble houses of Noxus at each other’s throats as cover for the rescue of a kidnapped heir. That they pocketed the reward money, only to ransom the vile young man to the highest bidder, should really have come as no surprise to their original employer. In Piltover, they still hold the distinction of being the only thieves ever to crack the supposedly impenetrable Clockwork Vault. Not only did the pair empty the vault of all its treasures, they also tricked the guards into loading the loot onto their hijacked schooner, for a quick getaway through the Sun Gates. In almost every case, only once they and their accomplices were safely over the horizon were their crimes even discovered—usually along with one of Twisted Fate’s trademark calling cards left where it would be easily found. But, eventually, their luck ran out. During a heist that rapidly turned from complex to completely botched, Graves was taken by the local enforcers, while Twisted Fate merely turned tail and abandoned him. Thrown into the infamous prison known as the Locker, Graves endured years of torture and solitary confinement, during which time he nursed his bitter anger toward his old partner. A lesser man would surely have been broken by all this, but not Malcolm Graves. He was determined to have his revenge. When he finally clawed his way to freedom, with the prison warden’s brand new shotgun slung over his shoulder, Graves began his long-overdue pursuit of Twisted Fate. The search led him back home to Bilgewater, where he found that the wily old cardsharp had acquired a few new bounties on his head—and Graves would be only too happy to claim them. However, just as he got Twisted Fate in his sights, they were forced to put aside their differences in order to escape almost certain death in the ongoing conflict between the reaver king Gangplank and his rival ship captains. Once again, Graves found himself escaping his hometown… only this time, he had his old friend in tow. While both of them might have liked to pick up their partnership where they left off all those years ago, such resentment couldn't simply be forgotten overnight, and it would be a while before Graves could bring himself to trust Twisted Fate again. Still, he feels Bilgewater calling to him once more. Maybe this time around, the pair of them will find their stride and be able to pull off the ultimate heist…One Last Shot
Holed up in an empty bar, bleeding from a dozen wounds and surrounded by armed men who wanted him dead, Malcolm Graves had seen better days. He’d seen worse ones, too, so he wasn’t worried yet. Graves leaned over the smashed bar and helped himself to a bottle, sighing as he read the label. “Demacian wine? That all you got?” “It’s the most expensive bottle I have...” said the innkeeper, cowering below the bar in a glittering ocean of broken glass. Graves looked around the bar and grinned. “I reckon it’s the only bottle you got left.” The man had panic written all over him. He clearly wasn’t used to being in the middle of a gunfight. This wasn’t Bilgewater, where fatal brawls broke out ten times a day. Piltover was regarded a more civilized city than Graves’s hometown. In some ways, at least. He yanked the cork free with his teeth and spat it to the floor before taking a swig. He swilled it around his mouth like he’d seen rich folks do before swallowing it. “Pisswater,” he said, “but beggars can’t be choosers, huh?” A voice shouted through the broken windows, buoyed with confidence it hadn’t earned and the false bravado of numbers. “Give it up, Graves. There’s seven of us to one of you. This ain’t going to end well.” “Damn straight it ain’t,” hollered Graves in return. “If you want to walk away from this, you best go fetch more men!” He took another swig from the bottle, then put it down on the bar. “Time to get to work,” he said, lifting his one-of-a-kind shotgun from the bar. Graves reloaded, pushing fresh shells home. The weapon snapped together with a satisfyingly lethal sound, loud enough to carry to the men outside. Anyone who knew him would know that sound and what it meant. The outlaw slid off the barstool and made his way to the door, glass crunching beneath his boot heels. He stooped to glance through a cracked window. Four men crouched behind makeshift cover: two on the upper floor of a fancy workshop, another two in shadowed doorways to either side. All held crossbows or muskets at the ready. “We tracked you halfway across the world, you son of a bitch,” shouted the same voice. “Bounty didn’t say nothin’ about you being alive or dead. Walk out now with that cannon of yours held high and there don’t need to be no more bloodshed.” “Oh, I’m comin’ out,” shouted Graves. “Don’t you worry none about that.” He drew a silver serpent from his pocket and flipped it onto the bar, where it spun through a pool of spilled rum before landing heads up. A trembling hand reached up to take it. Graves grinned. “That’s for the door,” he said. “What about the door?” asked the innkeeper. Graves hammered his boot into the inn’s front door, smashing it from its hinges. He dove through the splintered frame, rolling to one knee, gun blasting from the hip. “Alright, you bastards!” he roared. “Let’s finish this!”
Alignment
Chaotic Stupid
Current Location
Species
Ethnicity
Age
36-41
Birthplace
Bilgewater
Children
Pronouns
He/Him
Sex
Male
Gender
Man
Related Myths
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