A preview of an as-yet unannounced character, the mysterious James B. Carington.

The Mysterious James B. Carington

There are six companions in Kentucky Route Zero, characters who Conway encounters along the road and who end up joining him in the quest to make his final delivery. All six of these folks have their own detailed backgrounds, motivations and circumstances, and their own reasons for accompanying Conway. So far, we've only really shown you two of them: Ezra, the boy raised by eagles, and Junebug, the robot musician. This month, we'd like to give you a brief sketch of another of Conway's companions: James B. Carington.
Carington is a classic "mountain man" -- a kind of trailblazing explorer best known for leading the charge during the mid-to-late 19th century expansion of European settlers into the American west. But his explorations might predate American westward expansion -- by the stories he tells, he's been travelling the world for centuries, seeking out different cultures and learning their secrets. At some point he seems to have picked up a recipe for extreme longevity. Or maybe he's just a teller of tall tales. Either way, he'll have a lot of lore, pseudo-scientific techniques, and anecdotal evidence to share with anyone who will listen.
The inspiration and model for James B. Carington comes from two historical figures. The first is James Pierson Beckwourth, an African American mountain man from the mid-19th century. Beckwourth is probably most famous for having written an autobiography which details several historic events at which he happened to be present. The book also earned him a reputation as a bit of an exaggerator, or at worst an outright liar. But later historians discovered that many of his disputed claims, fantastic as they may have been, were actually closer to the truth than anyone had thought.
The second inspiration for James B. Carington is the English parapsychologist Whately Carington. "Parapsychology," if you're not familiar with the term, is a field of study concerned with paranormal phenomena and the human mind. We've mentioned before that we've taken a lot of inspiration from another friend of ours, Jon Cates , with whom we developed a different game about Mammoth Caves few years ago. The interest in Whately Carington is another of those inspirations -- Jon has studied Carington's theories in depth and explored them in some of his art projects . We won't get too deep into the theories of W. Carington in this newsletter, but suffice it to say that he was most concerned with the invisible and immeasurable connections between people's minds, and that some of his theories are poetically quite beautiful.
Conway and friends don't encounter James B. Carington until pretty late in the story, but he's able to lead them on a tour back through many of the areas they've already explored, offering new insights and accessing new secrets.
More soon!
jake+tamas