InsaneJournal

Norman ‘Norm’ Lowstein
Age: 26
Birthday: 29th October 1985
Archatype: Town looney
PB: Matthew Lillard
History
Norman and Logan Lowstein were born into a family of wealth. It was this wealth and easy access to money that would be the solving and source of many troubles for the boys. Geoff Lowstein was an orthodontist and Annabelle was an estate agent. Though perfectly capable to live off of one salary (rich ancestors were only a sweetener to the deal Annabelle got when she agreed to marry Geoff) Geoff encouraged Annabelle to get her license so she could feel she had some independent wealth.
Annabelle loved her children but trouble loved them more and so a string of boredom fuelled teenage rebellion ensued for both boys up until the end of high school. With a father capable, and a mother who’d much rather, of paying for lawful indiscretions to go away Logan and Norman thought of bigger and better ways to cause trouble and get their parents attention. It worked, by the time Norman was 15 he’d been enrolled in military school.
Of course despite the illusion that military school will straighten out your young troubled teens for Norman it was simply a year out of his life in which he made more sour connections than he had ever thought possible. A year later, whilst on a break from school, Norman hopped on a bus to New York and spent three years partying hard in the underground scene.
The funny thing about Speed is that it’s not a one time drug. Become addicted to it and it’ll grip you like a vice and not let go until you’ve tried every other drug on the planet to try and get rid of it. Weed, crack, cocaine, and pills one after another Norman followed them down the rabbit hole until his friends had had enough of him freeloading and sent him packing back to his hometown to let his rich family sober him up. Logan had gone, realising that rebellion only got you so far and didn’t earn you any money, he’d managed to maintain a perfect GPA through high school and graduate with a pass to Harvard Law. Logan had visited Norman once before throwing money at him to sober up but only enabling his little brother to wade deeper into wonderland.
For all intensive purposes Norman got clean but the damage to his brain was too extensive and he was put into a mental health facility where he was put through therapy, dosed up and tied down until he wasn’t trying to claw his skin off from withdrawal anymore. When he finally got out Norman’s mother couldn’t handle his erratic behaviour and unable to bear the sight of him his parents bought him an apartment to keep him out of their hair and their sight. Unable to hold down a job for longer than a few months and unable to go home Norman remained a cautionary tale to any kids getting involved in drink and drugs. Beware or you’ll become looney like ‘Norm’ a handy nickname given to him because he is now anything but.

Personality
Norm suffers from panic attacks, shakes and brief hallucinations. He can’t always tell straight away if the vision is real or not but if someone tells him they’re not he doesn’t find fault with believing them – he doesn’t trust his own mind anymore. His panic attacks come briefly after the hallucinations and are triggered by great stress – a zombie invasion counts as extreme stress so Norms anxiety levels are permanently in the red.
Most think that just because he has the shakes and occasionally mutters to himself (assuring himself that what he’s seeing isn’t real) that he’s stupid but he’s not. Though far from a genius Norm often surprises people when the things he says are very astute, relevant and come without constant interruption.
Still attracted to trouble, norm looted like the rest of the crowds when things went belly up, completely in his element amongst the chaos and destruction because stealing when people actually cared required a level of sneaky finesse he didn’t possess anymore. People view him as the town crazy as he’s probably the only noticeable addict to come back to Haven rather than die in the gutter in a big city.
He’s heavy handed sometimes but would never hurt anyone, he lacks a cruelty and killer instinct but his crazy makes him slow.

Useful skills
He doesn’t really have any…not anymore, unless you count his mad moments as being entertainment. He's a good distraction tool.

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