DOLPH - the definitive guide links     

 

 

 

 

Tumbling Dice

 

This outline below, written by Leopold St. Pierre, served as a first Tumbling Dice pitch intended for Dolph and the producers but was not retained. It was subsequently rewrote as Xander Ronson adventure to follow Diamond Dogs.


former story

Darhan, Northern Mongolia. A harsh, remote land, the last stop, truly in the middle of nowhere. Pristine. Untouched. Untamed. It’s mid-winter – deadly dzud season, when, as the old saying goes, for half a year Hell truly does freeze over. Swirling, blinding flash snow and razorblade-sharp ice storms sweep across the barren land, uncompromising, unforgiving, unstoppable. Life and death – all in the blinking of an eye, in the roll of a pair of loaded dice.

Our base of operations is a tiny, ramshackle bush pilot ‘airline’ in the middle of all this harsh nothingness. Three pilots, -- two Asian, one Western -- two patched-together old cheapshit planes, four bottles of scotch, more than enough lone-wolf bitterness, eccentricity and disillusionment to go ‘round. Welcome to Dragon Air. The trio are partners, friends – though at a glance they have little in common:

Danny “Ex” Chow (49, so nicknamed because he’s an ex-big city airline pilot, ex-husband, ex-teacher, ex-gun runner, even briefly ex-monk at the Zuu Monastary). A fearless crack pilot, grizzly gambler and drinker, more knowledgeable than a dozen encyclopaedias about just about every offbeat subject under the sun, and (despite his A-Z of vices and character flaws) a man without an enemy in the world.

Tai Ko, 53, the only native of the area, and he knows every square inch of it, every rule and how to bend it, every official, crooked or otherwise. Only, truth be told, there aren’t a lot of ‘otherwise’. He’s a crack mechanic who can somehow miraculously keep the ramshackle planes airborne, often with little more than spit and ingenuity. Neat and meticulous, a fastidious record-keeper, and the only one who seems to at least try and collect unpaid bills, and keep their little business afloat.

Brandon Blake, -- 38, a ruggedly handsome ex-pat American,. A former air force pilot who loved flying but was less fond of taking orders and following the rules . A soldier of fortune who’d initially drifted here and there for a few years after serving his rocky time in the service in two war zones, always trying to find a good fit – yet in the end only finding that petty laws and him didn’t seem destined to get along. He found his true calling out here in the middle of nowhere, just the planes, nature, a handful of friends and his own sleeping demons -- and over the past 7 years has grown to understand and respect the local customs, language and ways so well he’s now more at home here than he ever was back in the States.

That’s the setting. A harsh, middle-of-nowhere exotic world.Dangerous, but unpredictable and exciting. A trio of rugged individualists. A just-scraping-by airline ferrying supplies here and there, rescuing stranded hunters, saving lives in medical emergencies, doing whatever has to be done to make a buck.


back to top