Joel Dresden

Joel Dresden is the player's character (PC) in Chasing Beth (2021), the sixth game in the Elsaverse. He is a journalist who currently writes an advice column for a local newspaper, "The Sangrive Times", although in the past he was a reporter in a war, where he experienced a traumatic event that has caused him PTSD. Joel is in a relationship with Serena. He has an unnatural ability that allows him to communicate with the dead, although he wasn't aware of being a medium until the events in Chasing Beth.

Personal
Born and raised in Sangrive, Joel was always interested in the human aspects of stories and cared about the people. Kind, smart, and empathic, in college he went into journalism so that he could tell the stories he wanted to read, and he started getting really good at finding the human side of any story. At some moment, a war erupted after a far, desert country attacked the nation Sangrive is a part of, and Joel traveled there to cover the military operations. He was embedded with a Special Forces unit and, unarmed, faced the same threats and challenges as those professionals while focusing his reports on them as actual people with hopes, dreams, and fears, instead of talking about bombs, guns, and bullets. Joel was especially successful in bringing closure to the friends and families of those who fell in the desert: when those soldiers died, he knew them well enough that Joel was able to write his reports about them as if they were still talking to him.