The Age of Steam - Tales from Company B (Freeform)

[Locke Taelos]

A good while back, I started a freeform roleplaying game here called The Age of Steam.  It had a lot of players and a whole bunch of different plots going on.  It was a really great time and I really love the universe that I created for it.  However...lately I've been a little obsessed with secret organizations and witchhunters and various other groups that are trying to identify, categorize, and deal with the supernatural.    A steampunk version of the Men in Black perhaps. 

This game would have a lot of steampunk gadgets and gizmos.  It would have a lot of airships, steamships, trains, and mechanical horses.  There will be gun fights with members of the occult,  wars with wizards and the undead, and of course great mysteries and archaeological findings.   However instead of having a major story that branches off into separate stories...this will be based on one mission at a time.   The people that join this game will be part of this organization...new recruits if you will as the organization is just being created.

However because it is a newly created organization with only minimal backing from the government, the characters will not have backup or some sort of extraordinary arsenal or gear to go exploring with.  It's a very grass roots kind of thing.  Their actions will dictate the future of Company B, although honestly I think it's always going to be a kind of shadow organization whose existence is denied. 

Characters might die.  These missions are set to plunge the characters into a realm of understanding that most know very little about.  The country in which this story takes place, Deloth, is a country that believes solely on steampunk technology.  While some other countries might embrace magic over tech or even strive for a balance, Deloth is completely against magic.    Company B's existence is to make sure that anything supernatural or monstrous remains outside of their country.   There is no threat. There is no need to panic.   Deloth is a safe place to live.   It's your job to make it happen. 

"Lethodar norn qaziem aran kair" (The Road to Duty is Paved with Valor) - Company B's Motto

I'll post some more information if people are interested in playing.  In terms of characters...you can have veteran soldiers, specialists such as archaeologists and scientists, medical people such as doctors, or even outlandishly crazy inventors and the like.   The setting is a little more fantasy than a Cthulhu game. 

So let me know and if you have any questions before I post anything about the game please ask.

[Espatier]

I'm interested in this and I would like to make a character that works with trains?

[Locke Taelos]

I'm actually surprised I got a response!  You certainly could have a character that has knowledge/works with trains.   I was hoping to have a little more interest before going further with this though.

[Gryffydd65]

I will throw my bowler in to the ring. Not sure character concept yet, will go into some research.

[Locke Taelos]

Okay.  If anyone else is interested go ahead and reply.  I'm going to be leaving town tomorrow evening and won't be back until Sunday evening.  I might be able to finish some of the information before I leave Thursday, but in case I don't expect to see it Monday.   I'll see what I can do in posting a story snippet and some background before I leave though.  Thanks!

[Espatier]

Character concept idea

The age of steam

Country: Ruthenium (resembles the United States of America )

A neighboring country that shares Deloth's ideology in the fight against the supernatural. The language spoken is a form of Deloth (english) but as this country split away years ago after being a colony, the English wasn't spoken as a "proper" or as the king or queen's English. Ruthenium is a country that is known for taking refugees and has become a country "melting pot" of different smaller countries but not without its own problems.

Name: Baron Alonso Scoot Gehe, VD (Voodoo / Witch Doctor / Alchemical)
Degrees: Mechanical Engineering and Steam theory   
Codename: Lich Aka "The Dark one", Baron Voodoo
Age: 30ish?
AOE:  Occult Books (Hobby) and Dark Spells
Voodoo (Spirits) / Hoodoo (herbalism), Alchemical, Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals.

Note -
Self-appointed Baron and Witch Doctor titles.
I see him as an industrialist that has made his money on the backs of others

[Gryffydd65]

Corporal Jameson Winchester Rothschild
retired Army Officer in Her Royal Army
Explorer of the Dark Continent, Amazonian Jungle and climber of numerous mountain chains.
items
black bowler, double-breasted waistcoat, black pants, white shirt, monocle, black boots,
steam punk items
left glove over hand
steam pistol
weapons
kukri from mountain clan,
ebony bladed boot dagger from the dark continent
skills
sharp shooter
inquisitive
natural linguist

flaws
always right /over confident with skills

[Espatier]

Classy touch... I like the image that you painted

[Locke Taelos]

I hadn't quite anticipated characters actually being created before I got back from vacation (sorry for the delay, btw).   The spirit of the characters are fine although I can adjust them to better fit the universe that the game takes place in. 

Name: Corporal Jameson Winchester Rothschild

Age:

Gender: Male

Citizenship: Deloth

Eye Color:

Hair Color:

Occupation: Retired, Ex-military officer / Currently amateur explorer and mountain climber (despite bloated tales of grandeur)

Clothing: black bowler, double-breasted waistcoat, black pants, white shirt, monocle, black boots, left glove over hand.

Weapons: Revolver, Ebony bladed boot dagger.

Skills: Leadership, Delothian military tactics, logistics, reading and writing, hand-to-hand combat, horse back riding, small arms combat.

Flaws: Know-it-All, Arrogant

Stats (Order from importance to character.  1 being of little importance and 7 being of most importance)
Strength: 2 (He doesn't sound like the kind of guy that relies on brute force, but still in shape)
Perception:  5 (He's a good shot, but if he needs a monocle he must not have the best eye sight)
Endurance: 6 (For an aging man, he must be in pretty great shape to do what he's doing)
Charisma: 1 (People hate know-it-alls.  This guy is probably the General Custer of officers.  He might think he's a gentleman, but others will probably see him as a bit of a jerk.)
Intelligence: 4 (He's inquisitive, but I kinda feel like the always right kinda weakens his intellect a bit)
Agility: 3 (He's not suffering from arthritis)
Luck: 7 (Any veteran officer that decides to trek mountains and explore the world must be pretty lucky)

Background: (To be filled out I would assume)

Jameson Winchester Rothschild retired recently from military service for the King.   He has a comfortable pension and a desire to spend the rest of his days exploring and perhaps making a name for himself in the history books.  Unbeknownst to him he has also been targeted by an upcoming Delothian agency that wishes his service.   After receiving an invitation to the home of Senator Armand Wolfe, Armand finds himself sitting in a parlor room waiting for the Senator to see him.  The invitation was as cryptic as it was intriguing.  It promised danger along with an opportunity to explore life's unexplained mysteries.  If it was from anyone other than a reputable politician, Jameson would probably have been a lot more skeptical. 



*Keep in mind that just because he is super low in the Charisma department doesn't mean he can't talk to someone and get favorable results.  It's more of a gauge for character development.  If I see him being a smooth talker all of a sudden I'm going to raise an eyebrow considering the type of character you've developed.




Name:  "Lord" (Baron) Alonso Scoot Gehe

Age: 36

Gender: Male

Citizenship: Deloth

Eye Color:

Hair Color:

Occupation: Industrialist

Clothing:

Weapons:

Skills: Knowledge of External Combustion (Steam), Mechanical Engineering (BoS), Amateur Alchemist

Flaws: Fascination of witchcraft and Dwarven spiritism

Stats (Order from importance to character.  1 being of little importance and 7 being of most importance)
Strength: 1 (He doesn't appear to be a laborer in any way, shape, or form )
Perception:  6 (While most Delothians live in their homes comfortable and mundane...Alonso is different. He perceives truth.)
Endurance: 3 (He's able to endure long sleepless nights of study)
Charisma: 5 (Being an industrialist, he should be fairly charismatic)
Intelligence: 7 (He's quite the scholar)
Agility: 2 (He doesn't appear to be much of a gymnist)
Luck: 4 (You don't become a self proclaimed Baron without a little bit of luck)

Background: (To be filled out I would assume)

They call him "Lord" or "Baron" Gehe.  Perhaps its the aura of importance that he carries with him everywhere he goes.  Perhaps its the money that he has and the successful business ventures in the railroad industry.  Or perhaps its the fact that there is something quite unusual about Alonso Gehe.  It's not that he's out of the ordinary, but it's just the way he thinks.  Outside the box?  What a strange man, but what genius isn't? 

The real question is whether or not any of that strangeness has made its way to the King.   Everyone in Deloth knows that magic is forbidden.  It just gums up all of the machines and alters the beloved physics that science desperately requires to function.   It's the sort of thing that made Gehe ask the question of all questions in the first place.  Why?  Why can't it coexist?  Without any true understanding the people of Deloth just consider the options as clear as black and white and good and evil. 

So why then did Gehe suddenly get an invitation to visit Senator Armand Wolfe of all people?  Did he know? Was this some sort of blackmail scheme for funding Wolfe's political campaign? Highly unlikely.  And the invitation itself.  To discover the great unknowns of the world and ascertain their danger to the King and Country.  Bizarre.  But it couldn't hurt to see what it was all about.   And that's what the good Baron is doing.  He's waiting in Wolfe's parlor room to see just what he's gotten himself into.  He has a good feeling about this though.   This is the sort of thing he might have jumped at in another life.


Okay, I hope you guys don't mind that I sort of changed your character sheets.  I didn't fill in some things and you can alter the background however you see fit, but I figured I would use it to set up the current situation of your characters so far.  I only really want characters from the country of Deloth.  And magic is forbidden so all of these characters won't really have to much of an understanding or prior knowledge to some of the things they are about to discover.  But I like this current cast of characters.  I would like to have at least one more of the female persuasion, but hey what can you do?  I'll probably be adding a character of my own to round it out. 

[Espatier]

I love it!

[Locke Taelos]

Waiting on information as to where I can post the game.  In the meantime, my character that will be joining you two (or more if people still want to jump in there is still time...)


Name: Nathaniel Winters

Age: 24

Gender: Male

Citizenship: Deloth

Eye Color: Brown

Hair Color: Brown

Occupation: Scholar/Anthropologist

Clothing: Victorian suit

Weapons: Pen knife

Skills: BoS in Anthropology with a focus on Ancient Elven civilizations.  Reading and writing. 

Flaws: Glorifies and obsesses over ancient elven artifacts.  Dry and anti-social. Inexperienced.

Stats (Order from importance to character.  1 being of little importance and 7 being of most importance)
Strength: 3 (He has done a great deal of heavy lifting as far as equipment is concerned.  Lots of treks and camping have helped as well.)
Perception:  7 (His quiet demeanor and training in studying ruins has aided his investigation in ancient civilizations)
Endurance: 4 (Constant studying, enduring intense locations during his apprenticeships and traveling have helped him to be quite the survivalist)
Charisma: 1 (It's not that he's ugly or couldn't charm someone. It's just that he doesn't try and doesn't care what people think.  He loves civilization much more when it's been dead for several hundred years and nearly forgotten.)
Intelligence: 6 (He is a scholar at heart. )
Agility: 2 (He's not really agile, but he doesn't fall on his face for comedy relief either.)
Luck: 5 (It takes a lot of luck to actually find useful remnants of civilizations long buried by time.  Or maybe it's skill...)

Background: (To be filled out I would assume)

Senator Armand Wolfe is Nathaniel Winters' uncle (on his mother's side of course).  Nathan's mother has long since passed and Armand is one of the few blood relatives that he has left.  This doesn't mean much to Nathan, however, as he has been very busy in life, especially after schooling, and prefers to keep as far away from the bothers of family as possible.   When the courier trekked across the desert to provide Nathan with an invitation to his uncle's manor in Deloth, well, that seemed incredibly strange to him.  He concluded that Uncle Armand must be sick and wished to gather family for his final goodbyes.  Armand hated relatives as much as Nathan did, but respected the standoffish nature of his nephew.  It was probably because Nathan never bothered to ask anyone, including his uncle, for money. 

The contents of the invitation were cryptic and certainly not the sort of thing you would expect a dying relative to say (unless he was delirious) so Nathan went and found himself with two other men in the parlor room of his Uncle's home.    Nathan would generally ignore the other two men and would generally be reading something that he picked up from his uncle's library. 

Note: Elves no longer reside in Deloth or anywhere. Consider them a world power like the ancient Egyptians.  Most of the civilized world was actually nothing but slaves or peasants to them and feared them greatly.  There was a terrible apocalyptic situation that literally called for the Elves to rescue most of the world, but they were never seen again.   Most of humanity has since rewritten history about the elves and very little of anything nice is ever said about them (for good reason if you examine history).  There are, however, half elves that exist today.  Most people don't really like them either and they're considered sub-human in most cases.   But they're all that's remains of the elven civilization.

Dwarves, which is important to Gehe's character, are kind of primative and tribalistic and mostly found in Spydaria which is covered in jungles and rain forests.  It's sort of like Africa in an actual Victorian setting. Deloth is trying to throw in colonies, but it's not going very well.  Dwarves have their own things going on, but not much is known about them what with the language barriers and cultural differences.  Plus...dwarves still crack a lot of heads in this setting as they do any other.  )

[Gryffydd65]

Great write up of my character.

[Locke Taelos]

Thanks guys.  In the Modern RP section there is a Steampunk section for our roleplay.

I am starting to make a kind of compendium that you can go through in order to pick up some information about the game. It's not finished yet, but you might find some good stuff in there.  I suppose I can get this started on this unless anyone wants to convince anyone else to join in. Haha.  What do you guys think?  I can accommodate the first mission for just a couple people. 

[Espatier]

"Lord" (Baron) Alonso Scoot Gehe is ready outside the manor, ready to be received. He will be wondering why he was called before Senator Armand Wolfe!.