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The nineteenth week of COTW is another "matched set", a pair
of swashbucklers and both legends (in their own way); able
to be used independently or together... The first is a black
powder gun-fighter, a pioneer in the art of Gun Fu.
Albrecht Kaethner; swashbuckling gun-slinger
(c) copyright 2000 Volker Bach
Total Points: 281.5 Points
Age early 30s; 5'10"; 160 pounds; a bronze-skinned man,
lanky and lean, with sandy hair and greyish-blue eyes.
ST 12 [20] - thrust 1d-1, swing 1d+2, fatigue 13
DX 14 [45] - basic speed 6.75, move 6, dodge 7*
parry
(rapier) 11*
IQ 12 [20] - hearing 8, vision 15
HT 13 [30] - hit points 12
WL 14 [-] - fright check 16*
*includes bonus from Combat Reflexes
ADVANTAGES: Acute Vision +3 [6]; Ambidexterity
[10]; Combat Reflexes [15]; Fit [5];
Manual Dexterity +1 [3]; Reputation +2 (as great
shot, among buccaneers, 12-) [5]; Sharpshooter
(Unaffected by Gun Malf, +10%) [50]; Strong Will +2
[8].
DISADVANTAGES: Code of Honor (Pirate's) [-5]; Enemy
(Spanish Navy, 6-) [-15]; Hard of Hearing
[-10]; Obsession (Revenge on Spain and the Catholic
Church) [-10].
QUIRKS: Curses only in German; Hates monks; Loves
explosions; Tries to 'convert' swordsmen to firearms;
Maudlin drunk. [-5]
SKILLS: Acrobatics-14 [4]; Area Knowledge
(Caribbean)-12 [1]; Armoury/TL4 (Handguns &
Artillery)-13/18* [4]; Black Powder Weapons/TL4
(Wheellock Pistol)-20** [16]; Black Powder
Weapons/TL4 (Wheellock Rifle)-19** [8]; Black Powder
Weapons/TL4 (Wheellock Musket)-18**# [4]; Black
Powder Weapons/TL4 (Matchlock Musket)-17** [4];
Boating-13 [1]; Brawling-14 [1]; Climbing-15
[4]; Cloak-14 [2]; Demolition/TL4-13
[4]; Fast-Draw (Pistol)-16*** [2]; Fast-Draw
(Rapier)-15*** [1]; Fencing (Rapier)-15 [4];
Fireworks-11 [2]; First Aid/TL4-12 [1];
Gunner/TL4 (Cannon)-18 [8]; Gunner/TL4 (Mortar)-16
[2]; Jumping-15 [2]; Lockpicking/TL4-13*
[2]; Riding (Horse)-14 [2]; Savoir-Faire-12
[1]; Scrounging-12 [1]; Seamanship/TL4-11
[.5]; Speed-Load (Black Powder Weapons)-16***
[2]; Stealth-15 [4]; Swimming-13
[.5]; Tactics-11 [2]; Throwing-13
[2]; Wrestling-14 [2].
*includes +1 from Manual Dexterity
**includes +2 from IQ
***includes +1 from Combat Reflexes
#from Black Powder Weapons/TL4 (Wheellock Rifle)
default
LANGUAGES: German (native)-12 [0]; Dutch-11
[1]; English-10 [.5]; French-10
[.5]; Spanish-10 [.5]; Portuguese-10
[.5]; Latin-10 [.5].
MANOEUVERS: Dual Weapon Attack (Pistol)-20 [6]; Hit
Location (Pistol)-20 [6].
EQUIPMENT
Albrecht Kaethner always carries at least two Fine
(Accurate) double-barrelled wheellock belt-pistols (1d+1+
damage, Acc 2, 1/2D 75, Max 450, Wt 4, ROF 1, Shots 2, ST
10, Rcl -1). In battle he wears a specially-made pair of
crossed baldrics that accommodate four, and two rapiers. He
often keeps a pocket pistol on his person (1d+ damage,
p.HT124) when in street dress. His longarm of choice is a
heavy German Jager Rifle (p.HT124), though he also owns an
odd double-barreled carbine with the rifle barrel on top and
the smoothbore below (p.HT124). In a pinch he will go for a
standard matchlock musket (p.HT124), but he considers that
weapon gauche and clunky. If there is serious fighting to be
done and Albrecht came prepared he will have a length of
match (slow and fast), a burning slowmatch in a holder, a
pouch of grenades and some loose priming powder handy.
Occasionally he discovers his liking for rockets, though
they aren't much good in battle. Exactly what of this armory
he carries on his person will depend on the kind of fighting
that is to be done.
Aside from his guns, Albrecht is not a finicky dresser. He
usually wears seamen's clothes, with the linstock in his
belt to show off his status as ship's gunner. He owns, but
rarely wears, a set of fine clothes in the Dutch fashion
about ten years out of date. At home - wherever that
currently is - he keeps a set of armorers' tools, bullet
moulds, equipment for making gunpowder, paper for
cartridges, chemicals for making fireworks, several books on
the subject and an old and well-thumbed collection of
anti-Catholic broadsheets.
BIOGRAPHY
Albrecht Kaethner was born to a well-to-do bourgeois family
in Trier. His father was a gunsmith of good reputation and
considerable skill, and as the eldest son Albrecht stood to
inherit the business. He was apprenticed early on and loved
every minute of it. Indeed, the incredible gift the young
man displayed in handling weapons astonished everybody. By
age 21, Albrecht was a skilled journeyman, affianced to a
goldsmith's daughter and looking forward to a life of
wealth, respectability and quiet content.
It was not to last. Trier went to the Catholics in the
course of the Thirty Years War and though Albrecht's father
hadn't cared much for the conflict he was denounced as
having sold weapons and powder to the Swedish and having
conspired to blow up the cathedral. The former was true, the
latter nonsense, but this availed the elder Kaethner little
as he was tortured and executed as a traitor and unrepentant
heretic. Albrecht, unprepared to trust the sense of justice
of either the victorious Catholic princes or their Spanish
mercenary troops, secured a brace of pistols, two rifles,
200 guilders and his father's militia breastplate, sword and
horse and fled town for the Netherlands. That night he
turned to militant Protestantism, to revenge and to
violence.
As a skilled gunsmith, Albrecht could have made a
comfortable life for himself in the Netherlands, but that
was not his desire. Driven by his fierce thirst for
vengeance he enlisted for a time in the Dutch army, then
served with the Parliamentarians against the 'Catholic'
Stuarts and later still with the Dutch fleet in the
Caribbean. He became a soldier of fortune, coveted and well
paid for his expertise with guns and gunpowder and yearning
for any opportunity to fight the Catholic Church and the
Spanish, whom he identified with it. On his arrival in the
Caribbean he found the men to do it with.
Disappointed by the readiness with which the European powers
made their peace with Spain, Albrecht found the only men who
would never cease to combat the Spanish in Tortuga. It did
not matter to him that they did it out of greed, nor that
they were often French, and Catholics. He got to board
Spanish ships, kill Spanish soldiers and occasionally even
monks and officials of the Inquisition. That was what
mattered. Deserting his ship at Curacao he made for
Hispaniola and joined the Brethren of the Coast.
In the last years Albrecht - now also known as Albert
Cattiner, also known as Alberto Catinaro, also known as
Albert Caitnere - has made himself a name among the
Buccaneers of the Caribbean sea as a masterful gunner, dead
shot with any kind of gun, and the man to ask when you want
to blow up something. In this company he lost the last
vestiges of his bourgeois respectability and developed his
eccentricities, most of all the idiosyncratic fighting style
his shooting gift allows him to use. He has joined a number
of piratical expeditions, by now being accorded double
shares, and in one of them managed the shot that is still
talked about in the dives of Tortuga and Port Royal - two
pistol shots from the fore sheets of a Spanish galleon to
the heads of the captain and first officer, in three
seconds, across a crowded deck... After this piece of
glorious swashbuckling he was accepted by the Brethren as
one of their leaders, and became Wanted by the Spanish. He
is a well-known pirate and good friend of several true
celebrities, and feels at home enough to let his ardor for
revenge cool notably. In fact he has lately been thinking of
retirement...
ENCOUNTERED
Albrecht - though most people will be introduced to him as
Albert or Alberto - is a quirky person who puts little store
by formalities. The first impression is likely to be, well,
strange, especially if he comes from his tinkering and still
has slowmatch sticking out of his pockets and smells of
sulfur and brimstone. His voice is loud, though unwittingly,
and he will occasionally request that his partner in
conversation 'speak up' since his hearing has suffered from
the explosions he so loves. He is intense, if erratic, and
often changes from one language to another in
mid-conversation. (He speaks them all with a strong German
accent, except for German which he speaks with an affected
Dutch accent, when he remembers.) He loves talking shop,
enjoys demonstrating his shooting skills and is generally
ready to pull any kind of prank that involves things that go
bang. Since pirate humor is fairly robust he gets his way
often.
In combat, Albrecht is a hissing, spitting fury. His
personal combat style consists mostly of dodging, ducking
and tumbling through his opponents' ranks, firing pistols at
close quarters, clubbing unworthy opponents with the
handles, kicking and jabbing and only occasionally resorting
to rapier or cutlass. Any open hatch or window is a tempting
place to put a grenade and an enemy commander feeling secure
behind his screen of bodyguards is always the first to draw
his fire. PCs unfamiliar with this style - basically an
early form of "Gun Fu" - are in for a rude surprise.
(Note that Albrecht's Guns skills above are modified for his
IQ, but do not include the free accuracy bonus granted by
his Sharpshooter advantage. Using his preferred wheellock
belt-pistols, his modified skill is 22. Note also, in the
rare instances in which it might apply, that Albrecht does
not suffer from Snap Shot penalties.)
As a soldier of fortune, Albrecht is for hire for any
profitable venture, preferably against Spain. He will demand
good pay, but he's worth it. Characters looking for a good
gunner or demolitionist, a rifleman, or simply someone to
teach them how to use their shooting irons, could do worse
than hire him.
CANONICALITY
Albrecht uses the optional ST=HP/HT=FT rule from Compendium
I (p.CI7). Also, his Sharpshooter advantage has a
custom-made "Unaffected by Gun Malf" enhancement that
represents an especially cinematic extension of his
incredible talent for firearms - his guns never squib. With
TL4 weapons that is a major advantage. And finally, he has
been given two Maneuvers for his Pistol skill that are not
allowable under the official Martial Arts rules: Dual Weapon
Attack, which represents his trademark attack with one gun
in each hand, and Hit Location, off-setting 3 points of hit
location penalties. Neither is technically legal, but both
make great cinematic additions to this ancestor of Gun
Fu.
WHAT IF?
Albrecht is a cinematic swashbuckler suitable for a
high-powered 'Pirates of the Caribbean' campaign. He fits in
between c. 1645 and 1660 without modifications, and since
his kind of fate was not unknown throughout 17th century
Europe, he can be accommodated in any period between 1620
and 1720 with a few changes.
Musketeers: If he is to fit into a musketeer-type campaign,
he will have to be given Status (at least level 2), a number
of courtly skills and better dress sense. Of course, giving
him Engineering (Siege) and higher Tactics, Demolition and
Fireworks could point the opposite way, making him a crazy
military engineer. In that function he could even fit into
an even earlier period, around 1550-1600.
High-Cinematic Martial Arts Historical: If cranked up yet
another notch into a truly fantastic historical
action-adventure in which everyone is a master of one
martial art or another, Albrecht's Gun Fu could be
elaborated. The Boxing skill would not only provide better
unarmed damage and a Dodge bonus, but also offers maneuvers
such as Jab and the Roundhouse Punch. Karate offers a
variety of dashing kicks, with the Jump Kick and Acrobatic
Kick being especially appropriate for a gun-toting
acrobat.
ADVENTURE SEEDS:
Albrecht Kaethner works fine as a deus-ex-machina ally for
PCs in a tight spot. He can turn up on any given pirate
ship, blow the enemy all to hell and still not make the PCs
look inadequate since he didn't do it by swordplay. If PCs
are looking for someone to teach them gunplay, who better?
And of course his aptitude with explosives could make him
anything from a nuisance to an asset.
...and a Hole in the Wall: The PCs are planning a major raid
against a Spanish fortress where they know a large sum of
money is stored. To pull it off they will need someone who
can blow a hole in the back wall of the main tower so they
can get at the storerooms. Albrecht is their man, but can
they get along with him until they get there? And once he's
there, how will they stop him from blowing the entire place
to smithereens, succeeding only in killing a lot of
Spaniards and burying their loot under a ton of bricks?
Meet Me at Dawn: A cocky swordsman PC gets into a scuffle
with a raggedly-dressed pirate in a low dockside dive. The
man's swordplay is not up to his opponent, and although cool
heads prevail and separate the two, the infuriated PC utters
a challenge to a formal duel. On the next day, the
acceptance from Albert Cattiner arrives, stipulating
"pistols at 30 paces". Given his reputation as a gunman it
may be time for the PCs to pull off an elegant
chicken-out...
- written by Volker Bach
(volker_bach@public.uni-hamburg.de)
- editted and formatted by andi jones
(andi@angelwerks.com)
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