William Isiah Barnum (26 May 2060) is the owner and operator of Barnum's Bazaar.

Early life and family

Barnum was born in Rivertown and grew up in Prairieville, where at the age of 19 he took a sales position at Atwoods, a locally owned outdoor sporting good store, specializing in fishing and hunting equipment. Years later the owner, Matt Atwood, opened a second location in Concord, a few miles west of downtown Rivertown and the two co-managed both locations. Barnum was not close with his family and had few good friends but was content with the occasional poker game or fishing trip.

In October of 2089 as chaos spread through the city, he found Atwood shot through the head at the Prairieville location, the cash gone, and the store looted. He took a small stash of weapons and ammunition, put them in the trunk of his car, and drove to the Concord location, where he discovered the building on fire and looters ransacking the place. In an uncharacteristic show of suicidal bravery, Barnum drove them off and rescued another cache of weapons before the roof fell in. He lived in his car for the next three months as he searched through the Concord neighborhood looking for food and supplies. The car was badly damaged in a surprise attack and he drove it into a brick wall in his flight. In an act desperation, he barricaded himself in an old mansion and found it to be an excellent fortification. He ventured into the city ruins to search for food and, after the second strain of the superflu depleted the remaining population, attempted trading with any other scavengers he came across that didn't look drugged out on rundown or insane. Using the mansion as his headquarters, he set up a small trading shop that would evolve into Barnum's Bazaar, and the community of Concord slowly grew around up around it. He also has a very strong, though purely platonic, relationship with Honey Haverford.

Disposition and traits

Barnum is a man of few words and a quiet, reserved disposition. A black-and-white thinker, Barnum has no difficulty making snap decisions especially when it comes to his own safety. He possesses a keen sense for reading people and potential danger and has learned that in the violent aftermath of social collapse, his policy of "when in doubt, shoot first" has served him well. He has not, to his knowledge, wrongly killed an innocent person. On the other hand, he has buried plenty of would-be attackers in his long years in business.

Barnum lets his own personal sense of right and wrong guide his actions and he tries to be as fair with others while neither taken advantage of them, or exposing himself. His dry sense of humor and good heart have won him many admirers in the Concord community, but he has repeatedly ignored calls for him to set up a governance structure with himself at its head. He is more than content to continue running the Bazaar in the relative safety of Concord.

Goals and motivations

Though it is not in his nature to speak of such things, he takes a great amount of pride in the community that has formed around his humble store. Through a combination of luck, determination, and hard work, he accumulated an impressive stockpile of weapons and supplies and will defend them and Concord with his life. To that end, he has helped organized the building of Concord's walls and the installation of security checkpoints along the walls and throughout the Bazaar, though he is quick to point out the work of others and to deflect excessive praise.

Primary residence

Barnum lives in a comfortable penthouse suite in the Bazaar in Concord. In his younger days he would roam into Rivertown Central, the Western Reaches, and even into the Wastes in order to bring back goods and spread word of the Bazaar. Now he rarely leaves the community walls.

Attributes and Abilities

Barnum is a shrewd judge of character and can smell a lie from a mile off. However he knows in tough times people have their reasons for keeping the truth to themselves and won't press the issue unless he believes he is in imminent danger. He makes his mind up quickly about someone and won't hesitate to take action if he doesn't like the way they're acting.