OOC: NPC gallery

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Graybeard
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

It's nice to have this game back up and running again! JR, any chance you'd be willing to write a little description of Crosby here? Meanwhile, I give you, for your NPC-manipulating enjoyment ... Fumiko.

Name: Fumiko Otani, "Fumi" for short

Occupation: Office worker at the Greater Tsuiraku Crystal Ball Production Plant, Tsuirakushiti

Description: See this post, where she was introduced, for the generalities. She's a thoroughly unremarkable 23-year-old Tsuirakuan woman, nominally of middle-class upbringing, but herself more "lower middle class" until she can afford to move out of her parents' apartment. She's of typical Tsuirakuan appearance, with brown eyes and long brown hair that she often wears in a curled style (which requires various emollients and treatments that she really can't afford, but appearances must be maintained). She's slightly shorter than average, of generally average build but with certain ... enhancements that she spent her first paycheck getting done at a thaumato-plastic surgery center. At work she wears standard business attire, while at home, it's mainly casual pajamas unless she's going out for the evening, when she tends toward the rather tacky outfit she's wearing when first seen in the Mushroom Woods.

She is unusual in Tsuirakushiti for having essentially no primary magic skills: she can use magic-based consumer goods without incident, but cannot do any independent spellcasting. (In other words, she could use a Yuuki staff if she owned one -- she doesn't -- but couldn't cast a Fireball or Force Bolt without it.) This contributes to her inability to find a better job, and somewhat lower social status than her routinely middle-class upbringing would imply. Her parents are indeed about as middle-class as they can get, but will not appear here.

Backstory: Again, see the introduction. Her humdrum life, with more than one fantasy of being swept away from it by some dashing young Tsuirakuan male who's taken with her good looks (and doesn't mind her completely bland personality), got interrupted first by the opportunity to make a few bucks by being a "volunteer" to test the new warp gate in Rinkaiel, and then by being transported, via Pocket Dimension, to the Mushroom Woods when that gate misfired. (For exactly why it misfired, read the assorted threads involving PC Lucas Ravanel, who was passing through Rinkaiel at just the right, or rather wrong, time to make such things happen.) Note that while, when she first shows up, she's dressed in an outfit suggesting she might find additional "employment" as a Lady of the Evening or some such. In fact, she has never been in this line of "work," and has a generally routine social life, if one short on lasting relationships as her boyfriends have discovered she's not as interesting as she looks. There simply isn't a whole lot of there there. Reports that her surname is pronounced something like "Oakland" are incorrect, however.

When putting words into her NPC mouth, it's well to remember that (1) prior to the current adventure, she's never been out of Tsuirakushiti in her life, (2) she speaks only Tsuirakuan and, never having had a need for a Translation gadget, doesn't have one, with the communications issues that implies (presumably "HEEELLP!" means the same thing in every major language), (3) she's basically scared out of her wits, such as they are, and (4) she'll cling to the first ... heroic ... figure that comes along. One other minor point: although magically inept, she is relatively physically fit. On the one hand, this follows from her social status, and on the other, it's one of the things that prevents her from moving up in Tsuirakushiti, where the implied reliance on physical rather than magical labor is a minor social stigma.
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Graybeard
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

Okay, by popular request (meaning, JR asked for it), I'm writing a little on the recently introduced "Kevin," an NPC on the Majestic Otter. First, however, a little about his girlfriend Annabelle, who's been around for long enough that I should have written her up previously; Kevin's status will be clearer once Annabelle's is clarified. She is to be treated as a "secondary" character, not a regular PC, but closely enough tied to one that I'd ask that she not be used and abused as an NPC without appropriate prep work. (Incidentally, JR, could you put something up for Moriarty?)

Name: Annabelle Garces-Otero, but always just "Annabelle" in-story

Occupation: Elke's lieutenant in the Eisenfaust, meaning that she's not in the very top echelon of Eisenfaust big shots, but closer to them than to Eisenfausters on the street. On the Majestic Otter, she's masquerading as Elke's maid/beautician/etc.

Description: Annabelle is about 28 or 29 years old, a fairly ordinary-looking Farrelite woman with the dark skin typical of the country. She's attractive, but not notably so, of average height and build (albeit a bit more muscular than average) with medium-to-long brown hair and brown eyes. Most of the time, she wears functional clothing for an office worker, as she is in normal circumstances; however, for the sea voyage, she has dressed up slightly, although taking care not to upstage her "mistress." Under most conditions, she makes sure her clothes are loose enough to leave it ambiguous as to whether she's packing heat.

Backstory: Not really much to tell. She grew up in Lorrel and fell in with the Eisenfaust as part of an early romantic attachment. The affair didn't last, but the Eisenfaust connection did, and it didn't take the Eisenfaust brain trust long to realize that she was bright on the one hand, and willing to do what the guild needed done on the other. She and Elke became good friends almost on sight, as she was laying low following a botched hit (the only time she was assigned to take a life, which she succeeded in doing) that she suspects, no doubt correctly, was "burned" by another guild. They've worked together for nearly five years, and Elke trusts her implicitly -- although not so completely as to fully explain her marriage and just what happened to her husband, the sinister Mr. Stagpoole.

Skills: Competent but not exceptional with firearms, and better at unarmed combat (she's stronger than she looks) than with sword or dagger. She has very good balance and dexterity, and could do careful burglary if required, but she's valuable enough to Elke that she hasn't put this skill to use in years. She has no known magical skills, but like many Farrelites, probably has untapped magical potential that simply has never been developed. She's quite bright and has no problem doing administrative work for Elke on the one hand, and using arcane magical gadgets smuggled in from Tsuiraku on the other. She is also surprisingly musical, with a good contralto voice (her preferred genre is folk music) and skill on guitar and other stringed instruments; this has something to do with how she and Kevin got together (see below).

She's single, with a fairly typical string of boyfriends in her past, most of whom she discarded after it became clear that they weren't Eisenfaust material. However, she's showing signs of a possibly more committed relationship with Kevin -- if they both survive the cruise.
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Graybeard
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

OK, so here's Kevin. Unlike his girlfriend Annabelle, he's an NPC, to be used by whoever needs him. A little more about personality than for Annabelle, whose personality should be apparent by now from her many appearances:

Name: Kevin Strutinskii, normally just Kevin

Occupation: Eisenfaust goon half time, longshoreman half time

Description: Kevin is a well-muscled 24-year-old Farrelite who has been working in the Port Lorrel harbor for the last ten years or so. He is oddly baby-faced, looking at least five years younger than he is, despite a knife or dagger scar on his left cheek that has been largely but not entirely medically repaired by Dr. Rabbitfoot. His brown hair is cut short and he is clean-shaven. He's about 6'2" and his disguise as Elke's "manservant" or "valet" doesn't hide the fact that he has muscles in places where many men don't have places. Despite this intimidating physical presence, he is surprisingly soft-spoken and polite most of the time, even when he's beating somebody up. He only speaks Veracian (also the language of Farrel), but since the Majestic Otter is equipped stem to stern (at least in the public parts of the ship) with Translation Effects, that doesn't hinder him in moving among the primarily Tsuirakuan passengers.

Backstory: Kevin had a rough upbringing in Port Lorrel and left school early to become a longshoreman. (Despite this, he's surprisingly well read about the geography of the Errant World, and like Annabelle, a decent musician.) He lived the early stages of a typical brawling, wenching and boozing life among his fellow longshoremen, until about six years ago, when he and another man happened almost accidentally to save Annabelle's life in her one and only botched hit (see the description of Annabelle above). The other man was killed along with the target of the hit, but Kevin survived, and understandably earned Annabelle's eternal gratitude. Between the real age difference between the two and Kevin's weirdly youthful appearance, no flames were yet lit, but when they ran into each other in a bar five years later (he was busking, she was casing a possible "outlet" for certain Eisenfaust commodities), one thing led rapidly to another and they became an Item. After six months, Annabelle felt comfortable enough with him to start filling him in on possible (ahem) employment opportunities with the Eisenfaust, which he enthusiastically accepted.

Personality: He's not as thuggish as he looks, not going out of his way to start a fight, although he's entirely comfortable with it if a fight happens to find him. Although he knows much about the Errant World's geography (and fully grasps the implications of a stop at Alctraziel), he has never been out of Farrel, and he's curiously naive about the human side of living in places like Tsuiraku or Veracia. The combination of this naivete, the baby face, and the weightlifter's physique creates all manner of confusion when people outside the Eisenfaust are dealing with him. However, it qualifies him well to be Elke's "bodyguard," as everyone who's seen him on board suspects he is, his alleged "valet" status notwithstanding. Another paradoxical part of his personality is that he actually knows a tiny bit of magic, notably a Hygiene spell that he has found useful not just for cleaning himself up after a fight, but also for tidying up the scene so that he's left no fingerprints. This came in handy during some of his younger brawling, and has saved his hide a time or two when doing "wet work" for the Eisenfaust.

He's quite smitten with Annabelle and sincerely loves her; however, his womanizing past emerges every now and then in the form of a wandering eye and flirtation that might lead who-knows-where in certain circumstances. However, Annabelle has made it clear that she'll kill him if she ever finds him in bed with another woman, so his flirtation has never got into those "certain circumstances" that might lead to you-know-what ... yet.
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