1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae]

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

On the other hand, it can't hurt to get ideas on how cocaine (maybe laced with something) could plausibly accidentally kill a new user almost immediately, perhaps someone drunk who tries a single snort.

It's probably too late to help, but cocaine has a pretty strong link to heart attacks, and I've heard stories (unverified) of people who had a heart attack shortly after (within an hour) their first time using the substance. So you don't really need anything special, just someone with a possibly higher-than-normal risk of heart attack to maybe take a bit more than he should and, boom, dead of cardiac arrest.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Would a Newfoundland be more or less imposing than an Irish wolfhound?

Irish wolfhound seems too appropriate for the character to go with much else - according to Wikipedia at least, they were originally bred from war hounds, and are used for hunting and guarding. For someone who was a soldier at war and now is either hunting people ("Big Bad Wolf") or is a source of protection from those that are ("dog who keeps the wolves from the door"), that's just too close of a match to not go with. Shame they have nearly as good of a reputation as Newfoundlands, although there have been some pretty nasty attacks in New Zealand I ran across trying to find an imposing picture of one (I failed).