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This week's second COTW is the fifth and final segment of a
five-part series of characters for "GURPS Steampunk". The
five characters all revolve around the search for a fabled
artifact called Odin's Horse...
ODIN'S HORSE, PART 5: CONTROL
"Everything that emancipates the spirit without giving us
control
over ourselves is harmful."
-
'Proverbs in Prose' (J. W. von Goethe)
"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we
recognise
that we ought to control our thoughts."
-
'The Descent of Man', 1871 (C. R. Darwin)
Madeline Angelica Rose; heiress vigilante on a quest for
Control
(c) copyright 2000 andi jones
Total Points: 150 Points
Age 32; 5'7"; 154 pounds; a rather plain-looking woman, with
close-cropped mousy brown hair, a slightly rounded nose and
blue eyes, usually wearing austere clothing suggesting a
nun's habit.
ST 10 [-] - thrust 1d-2, swing 1d
DX 15 [60] - basic speed 6.75, move 6, dodge
7/9*#
parry
(main-gauche) 12*@, parry (boxing) 12*
block
(light cloak) 10*, block (heavy cloak) 11*
IQ 12 [20]
HT 11 [10]
WL 12 [-] - fright check 14*
*includes bonuses from Combat Reflexes
#gets +2 from Boxing against unarmed and thrusting
attacks
@includes +1 from main-gauche hilt PD
ADVANTAGES: Combat Reflexes [15]; Fit [5];
Independent Income [5].
DISADVANTAGES: Edgy [-5]; Obsession (Find Odin's
Horse) [-10]; Secret (is the Black Rose)
[-20].
QUIRKS: Works hard to stay physically fit; Dresses in
ordinary and unremarkable clothing; Alternates between being
sloppy and fanatically neat; Walks with the help of a cane,
even though it's not necessary; Chaste. [-5]
SKILLS: Acrobatics-16 [8]; Acting-14 [6];
Boxing-16 [4]; Broadsword-16 [4]; Cloak-16
[4]; Crossbow-14 [.5]; First Aid/TL5-11
[.5]; Hidden Lore (Nobility)-12 [2];
History-10 [1]; History (Esoteric)-11 [2];
Literature-9 [.5]; Lockpicking/TL5-13 [4];
Main-Gauche-15 [2]; Karate-16 [8];
Needlecraft-14 [1]; Occultism-10 [.5];
Philosophy (Malthusian)-10 [1]; Research-10
[.5]; Riding (Horse)-13 [.5];
Savoir-Faire-13 [2]; Shadowing-13* [0];
Stealth-17 [8]; Teaching-12 [2]; Theology
(Protestant)-9 [.5]; Traps/TL5-13 [4].
*default from Stealth
LANGUAGES: French (native)-12 [0]; English-10
[.5].
MARTIAL ARTS STYLE: Savate
MANOEUVERS: Back Kick-15 [1]; Elbow Strike-16
[1]; Hit Location (Karate)-15 [2]; Jump
Kick-15 [1]; Kicking-16 [2]; Spin Kick-16
[1].
EQUIPMENT
As a travelling servant, Madeline Rose can usually carry
everything she owns in a single, simple suitcase. In
addition to various toiletries and mundane items, she owns
two Fine-quality knives with wide blades and hand-guards
(for use with the main-gauche skill, PD 3, DR 5 to hand,
1d-1 imp, 1d-2 cut). She also walks with a hardwood cane,
which can be used as a light club (1d+1 cr). And if met out
of doors, she will be wearing a cloak. In most weather, it
will be a light cloak (PD 1), but in heavy rain or cold it
will be a heavy cloak (PD 2); see pp.MA125-126 (or
pp.Ci132-133) for more detail on how the cloak is used in
combat. In addition to these items, it is possible that
Madeline owns some objects that once belonged to her father,
August Rutherford Rose - a few books, some old papers, maybe
an heirloom of some kind, etc.. But if she does, she doesn't
travel with them, and must have them safely stashed
somewhere where she can get them if she ever needs to.
BIOGRAPHY
Madeline Angelica Rose was born in the early 1840s, the
daughter of August Rutherford Rose, one of the most powerful
men in England. But Madeline's mother was not August Rose's
wife, but rather a French suffragette with whom Rose had an
affair while on business in France. (Rose, one of the powers
behind the Whigs, made periodic travels to France where he
did top-secret business with the court of Louis-Philippe.)
For obvious reasons, Mr. Rose could not claim his daughter
publicly, but her strong-willed mother made him promise to
support her, even if done quietly. Mr. Rose reluctantly
agreed, and Madeline was raised in rural France.
Growing up, Madeline was a quirky girl. She was moody,
timid, and never felt as though she fit in. More than mere
shyness, her problems left her profoundly troubled.
Predominantly, she felt helpless, anxious, as if afraid of
an unidentified threat. Also, she didn't know who her father
was, only that he couldn't live with the family, and that he
sent money to support her and mother. Although she learned
this at a young age - and seemed to accept it - it fostered
a deep resentment that would manifest consciously when
Madeline was an adolescent. Ultimately, a connection was
made; the absent father was somehow linked to the absent
threat that caused her anxiety, and eventually she was not
just anxious and edgy, but also bitter and resentful, with
much of that feeling directed to her father.
It was at this time - in the mid 1850s - that Madeline met a
man named Greene, someone her mother had encountered through
her revolutionary suffragette activities. Greene was
mysterious, but had an avuncular demeanour that Madeline
found appealing. She was able to confide in him (having kept
most of her feelings from her mother), and over time he
offered to teach her Savate as a means of getting a sense of
control back in her life. She was intrigued, and turned out
to be an excellent student. Over the course of the next ten
years, she trained with Greene, developing an impressive
degree of skill in boxing and acrobatics. But at the same
time, her mental issues did not get appreciably better; her
physical skills certainly required great amounts of
discipline, but they did little to quiet the anxieties, or
to reduce the bitterness and resentment she felt toward her
unknown, long-absent father.
One day in 1867, Greene disappeared. Madeline was
distraught, having grown accustomed to his reassuring
presence, evidently to the point of being dependent on it.
She demanded answers from her mother, and after a few weeks
learned that Greene had gone to England. Without a plan or
any sense of what she was getting into, Madeline followed
him. She never did find Greene, but she found people who
knew him, and through those contacts stumbled onto the truth
about her father. She learned that her father had been
August Rutherford Rose, a man of great wealth and influence,
who had just died less than a week earlier of an infection.
(The precise details of Rose's "infection" never quite
managed to surface, but Greene's disappearance, as well as
cryptic insinuations from some of his colleagues, suggested
to Madeline that her mentor had been somehow involved.)
Madeline's reaction to her father's death was nothing she
could ever have anticipated. On the one hand, she never knew
the man, and had no feelings for him as a person. But at the
same time, he had - for more than twenty years - been the
focus of all her resentment and frustration. And, for all
intents and purposes, he had been not just the target of
those feelings, but their cause as well. Learning that he
had been socially prominent explained why he had never been
a part of her life, and why she could never have been part
of his. And learning he was dead made her feel suddenly much
worse; even in death, he was still able to leech away her
sense of control. Madeline wanted desperately to free
herself from the grip of this anxiety, so she obtained the
address of one of her father's offices and broke in late one
night.
What Madeline hoped to find would be some artifact of her
father's that she could destroy, as if in effigy, and a
means of symbolically killing him, ridding herself of him in
a way that left her in control. (Gaining control in
metaphorical ways had been something Greene had spoken a lot
about over the years.) What she found instead was quite a
shock; papers and records in the office library revealed
that her father had been a member of a secret network of
powerful men from Britain, America and points on the
continent. They had their hands in the affairs of virtually
every government, and their purpose seemed to be to maintain
control (in political, economic and even social contexts).
This caused Madeline's anxiety to swell even further; the
image she had of her father while growing up - that of some
larger-than-life monster who existed to rob her of control -
was proved to be true... While Madeline was still in shock,
two men arrived, obviously not expecting to find her there.
It wasn't clear if they knew who she was, but it was clear
that she knew more than she should have. She fought them,
and did so in a state of such primal anxiety that she killed
the two men, almost easily. Now having claimed two lives,
Madeline realised that she was spiralling even further out
of control. Having been sucked into her father's
conspiratorial legacy, his control over her was only
growing, and it needed to be stopped. Madeline took
everything she could carry, and that dawn marked the true
beginning of her quest for Control.
Madeline learned the locations of her father's other
libraries and offices, and quickly visited any she could get
into in an attempt to find as many of his papers and records
as possible, before his colleagues could do the same.
Anticipating violence, she put together an all-black costume
to conceal her identity. One night that first week, she
killed a man in anger, but left flowers with his body as a
token of her regret. The flowers were roses, with petals of
a dark, royal purple. But by the time the body was
discovered, the petals had dried out and become black; the
newspapers connected the murder to some of Madeline's other
break-ins, and the sensational headlines attributed the
killing to a vigilante called "the Black Rose". Quite
unintentionally, Madeline had created a legend that would
only grow from there.
Madeline has now been at it for eight years. The more of her
father's materials she recovered, the more she learned about
the conspiracy in which he participated. Each time she
learned a new name, she would track the person down, kill
them, and confiscate their records and unearth more names.
And it was during this process that she learned about Odin's
Horse, and concluded that if her father sought to use the
artifact to establish control, she could (and would) do the
same. So now Madeline's mission is not simply to
symbolically destroy her father's control over her by
murdering his partners-in-crime; her hunt and elimination of
the conspirators now has the added dimension of getting her
closer to Odin's Horse.
The Black Rose is known to have committed at least 34
murders in England, France and a handful of other countries
since 1868. In reality, Madeline has probably killed close
to twice that many. To the public, the Black Rose is a
mysterious celebrity, almost something of an underclass
anti-hero. The establishment is, of course, horrified, and
is desperate to catch the killer. But they have no leads. In
fact, the public doesn't even know if the Black Rose is male
or female; witness accounts are few, and rumour and
misinformation distort and confuse the issue. For all
intents and purposes, Madeline is acting in near-total
anonymity; even her father's remaining colleagues don't know
it's her, because they never even knew she existed... (One
other factor that helps is that Madeline speaks English with
a slight French accent, which would suggest she is a
foreigner, and everyone assumes that the Black Rose is
English...)
ENCOUNTERED
Suffice it to say, Madeline Angelica Rose is a very
disturbed woman. She has been consumed by her struggle for
control for so many years, that any rational or logical
thought has long since gone out of it. Her worldview is
permanently and irrevocably twisted, and her reality is as
unique as it is inflexible. But, Madeline Rose is a clever
and resourceful woman as well, and is able to play the role
of a relatively normal person, at least in the short
term.
If someone were to meet Madeline, she would seem a timid and
completely inoffencive maid, a woman of the lower-class who
is meek, deferential and socially invisible. She travels,
getting work here and there as a nanny, or a maid, or a
seamstress. She prefers to take work that minimises contact
with adults, so that she won't be remembered. By and large,
all the anxiety and anguish (and violence) that marks the
Black Rose's activities are absent in Madeline's quiet and
unassuming "secret identity".
Meeting Madeline when she's in costume and "on the job" is
another matter, of course. In this aspect, she is deadly and
efficient, and her actions - and even her body language -
are all about maintaining control, as though she is a coiled
spring trying in vain to keep itself compact... She doesn't
enjoy killing, but has long since passed the point at which
her morality has any bearing on her actions. Even so, she
won't kill unless she absolutely must to preserve her cause.
Any time she can get by leaving someone unconscious, she'll
do so, or at least try. GMs running Madeline in combat
should try to make her mysterious and frightening, someone
who sticks to the shadows, moves into one's peripheral
vision and disappears... in the tradition of the Bogey Man,
or Batman. She may be tough in a stand-up fight, but she'd
prefer to not have to ever be in one. She should be played
crafty, inventive and not a simple brawler.
ODIN'S HORSE
Odin's Horse is the Ultimate Mystery. Like the fabled Holy
Grail, it is said to be an ancient artifact, a physical
object or treasure of unimaginable power and value. At the
same time, it is said to express an ideal, a symbol for an
abstract concept or state of being. In the same way that the
alchemists' Gold was both a priceless metal and an elevated
spiritual state, so too is Odin's Horse. The name is a
reference to the World Tree of Norse mythology, Yggdrasil -
the name means "Ygg's Horse", and refers to Odin in his
incarnation as the Destroyer. Odin had many names, and
personified a diverse array of characteristics: he was the
violent force of nature's wrath; he hanged himself on the
Tree to secure the Mead of Poetry; he used magic and the
spirits of the slain to influence battle; he gouged out his
own eye in exchange for wisdom; and he used sex and guile to
confuse and deceive his enemies. He was mercurial, dangerous
and untrustworthy.
To Madeline Rose, Odin's Horse is all about Control. Odin
didn't merely rule the world; given his sorcery, his
shapeshifting, his spying ravens and his armies of Einherjar
amassed in Valhalla, he had firm control over it. In this
capacity, Madeline sees Odin's Horse as the tool with which
she can regain control of her life, and halt the
conspiracy's machinations (and, by extension, their control
over her). Unlike most of her peers, Madeline doesn't have
any long-term grand plans for Odin's Horse - at least not
that she consciously realises. Her mission is about being
able to control her own Fate, and not about asserting
control over others. She identifies most with Odin's habit
of assuming disguises and changing his shape with sorcery,
all the while maintaining a powerful sense of identity and
purpose; it is that certainty and strength she desires. Of
course, there is a fine line between complete control of
one's own life, and control of the lives of others; once she
has mastered her own destiny and is fully "empowered", it is
unclear where Madeline would go next... As for the true
nature of Odin's Horse, Madeline doesn't know if it's a real
object, or something more abstract, but she doesn't really
care, since she knows what she's looking for is a spiritual
or moral transformation.
WHAT SHE KNOWS
William Morgan Crosse: William Morgan Crosse's father was
partners with August Rutherford Rose, Madeline's father.
When Madeline finally became aware of her father's identity,
and of his conspiratorial activities, she learned that
William Crosse had apparently brought his son William Morgan
into the fold. After the elder Crosse's death, it was clear
that William Morgan was continuing in his father's footsteps
(much like, ironically, Madeline Rose is following in her
father's footsteps). So Madeline knows Crosse is involved,
but knows him by reputation only. She thinks his idealistic
philosophies about enlightenment are quaint, but she can't
very well identify with them. She tries to watch him, and to
note his movements, but doesn't think much of him, nor
consider him too great a threat. But though she may think
he's a bit square, she won't underestimate him, and will
continue to watch his movements.
Brad Guffey: Madeline Angelica Rose's father was one half of
the Crosse-Rose Company, the arms manufacturer (among other
things) that took contracts from the Martial Development
Office at which Brad Guffey worked. Mr. Crosse had become
aware of Guffey's attitudes, and his people kept tabs on
him. In the time since then, in the course of her activities
as the Black Rose, Madeline has come into possession of some
of those reports and knows that Brad Guffey is the name
behind the radical political pamphlets of "the Iconoclast".
Presently, she hasn't done anything to act on this
information, but has recently concluded that Guffey is
looking for Odin's Horse. This, of course, puts Guffey in
her path, and in a position to threaten her control. So now
she has plans to have Guffey exposed, but she hasn't decided
how it should be done. She is aware that the Martial
Development Office is looking for him, but if they apprehend
Guffey then all his research will disappear forever into the
vaults of the United States government. Instead, Rose wants
to have Guffey taken down by someone within the circle of
conspirators that she hunts, so that she can eventually
"inherit" his work. The logistics, however, she has yet to
work out.
Roland Mannheim: Madeline Rose is unaware of the existence
of Roland Mannheim, a testament to the diligence with which
the Order of Reason protects its secrets. Connected to the
Freemasons, and no doubt having hidden ties to the same
people that once worked with Crosse-Rose, the Order of
Reason itself is not unknown to Madeline; she has heard the
name, knows they are a political entity, but little
else.
Amanda Young: In the course of monitoring William Morgan
Crosse, Madeline Rose has learned about Amanda Young as
well. She doesn't know the degree to which Ms. Young is
involved in the search for Odin's Horse, but Madeline has -
purely instinctively - realised that Young is exerting some
kind of control over Crosse. As a woman with virtually zero
sexual experience, Madeline cannot identify with Amanda
Young's sexual wiles, but at the same time she regards them
with a kind of disgusted (yet strangely intrigued)
fascination.
CANONICALITY
The characters designed around the Odin's Horse adventure
seed are intended for a semi-realistic steampunk setting set
in about 1875. The characters' advantages and skills assume
an alternate history in which technology has diverged from
baseline TL5, and that some technologies are maturing at a
faster rate, but which does not include the more fabulous
"weird science" the genre supports. The setting also assumes
a certain degree of conspiracy, mystery and "invisible
history". In this setting, the occult is the study of the
hidden, and need not pertain to anything more supernatural
than the mysticism genuinely associated with certain
religions and philosophies. But the very idea of Odin's
Horse allows this to be scaled back or forward in any
direction.
Historical Steampunk: The 19th century European and American
cultures saw their share of esoteric philosophies
intermingling with radical shifts in political, social and
scientific thought. It was a time marked by unrivalled
advances in science, but which also took seriously such
topics as the Hollow Earth and luminiferous ether; the line
between science, pseudo-science and mysticism was often
blurred. In a steampunk setting with a more realistic
approach to technology, Odin's Horse remains a potent
symbol. Likely, the people searching for it accept that it
is an abstract treasure, characterised as an allegory.
Perhaps it is a codex saved from the Library at Alexandria,
or a lost scroll from ancient Judea, or a copy of the Popul
Vuh pre-dating the Spanish Conquest. In a primarily
realistic setting, no significant changes need to be made to
Madeline Rose. Some of her skills are unusual, but nothing
is patently impossible. At most, one or two of her combat
skills might be reduced from 16 down to 13-14, just so her
combat training seems a bit more down-to-earth. Similarly,
her martial arts manoeuvers could be reduced to their
defaults, or lowered to having a single character point
apiece.
Cinematic Steampunk: If the Hollow Earth is a reality, and
weird science just a matter of the right tools and a little
elbow-grease, the possibilities for Odin's Horse are
unlimited. Perhaps it's an alien artifact, lying dormant
beneath the Earth, lurking on the edges of the collective
unconscious. It might be an ancient analytical engine, or a
clockwork computing machine from the days of Alexander. It
could be a psionic amplification device, the sorcerously
archived soul of an arch-mage, or a Martian menace on the
loose from Somewhere Else. Odin's Horse could be everything
its seekers think it is, hope it is or want it to be. In a
setting that takes a decidedly cinematic or fabulous
approach, Madeline could easily be filled out further. The
obvious approach is to expand on her martial arts. Although
Savate formally has no Cinematic variant (see p.MA99), there
are plenty of candidates for inclusion in a cinematic
kick-boxer. All manner of Acrobatic Kicks and Flying Jump
Kicks would be appropriate (being quite popular in recent
kung-fu cinema and television). In fact, Victorian
Catwoman-style action could be furthered by such skills as
Flying Leap, Mental Strength, Precognitive Parry and
Throwing Art, among others. Also, Madeline's constant
struggle for "control" could be played up with some
character points in skills like Meditation, and
cinematic/esoteric skills such as Breath Control, Immovable
Stance and Mental Strength. (Of course, since Madeline is
always trying to achieve control but isn't quite "there"
yet, she shouldn't have very high levels in these skills, to
illustrate her ongoing struggle...) Another angle to explore
would be to give the Black Rose her own "utility belt" of
relatively realistic gadgetry; she might have sword-blades
concealed in canes, throwing stars, glass vials of sleep
gas, lock-picks and skeleton keys, climbing crampons,
grappling hooks and that sort of thing. This may or may not
require a Gadgeteer advantage, depending on how outlandish
her knick-knacks get...
ADVENTURE SEEDS
Each of the characters in the Odin's Horse series is built
around the concept of the Grail-like treasure they all
strive to find. The adventure seeds below are related to
that search, but may also be adapted for use in a campaign
of lesser scope.
A Weekend in the Country: The PCs are capable protectors -
perhaps from the British military, or Scotland Yard, or even
free-lancers. And they've just been hired as bodyguards by
an anxious British lord who fears he's next on the Black
Rose's hit-list. He'd like to have someone around, someone
to watch his back. But like in all life-or-death matters,
there's a major fly in the ointment: the lord's wife is
hosting a massive family reunion, to be held as an elegant,
festive costume ball on the grounds of their sprawling
country estate. The PCs truly have their work cut out for
them. Their instructions are "simple"; they're to patrol the
grounds and keep an eye on the guests, and to protect the
lord (and his immediate family) with their lives. And
they're to do all this without getting in the way, without
disrupting the party, without betraying their presence to
any of the guests, and without letting any rumours of the
Black Rose tarnish the lord's sterling reputation. In other
words, they have to do it all, and they have to do it
invisibly. The Black Rose, meanwhile, will be on hand in her
own invisible capacity, as one of the nannies hired to look
after the children. Will she make the PCs for bodyguards?
Will they figure her out? Both sides, hiding in plain sight,
each looking for the others without trying to look like
they're looking... It's all in a day's work.
The Pen is Mightier than the Sword: It's not every day that
you get a shot at the diary of one of the masterminds of the
Illuminati; think of the riches such a volume might contain!
And the PCs - perhaps a group of occult investigators, or
private detectives in the employ of a mysterious
brotherhood, or just nosy meddlers - have heard a delicious
rumour: a handwritten volume has surfaced that contains some
alarming revelations (or, for the more suspicious of heart,
allegations) about the Crown's surreptitious involvement in
the military coup of Spanish General Martinez Campos, an
event that was pivotal in the collapse of Spain's republic,
which in turn gave Alfonso XII the opportunity to formally
ascend the throne. The charges are, as yet, unconfirmed, but
the very idea that the Crown would be pulling strings to
benefit a Catholic monarchy has disturbing implications. So
the PCs manage to track the volume down, and make
arrangements to visit the volume's owner in an abandoned
building late one night. They arrive at the appointed hour,
only to find a thief - none other than the Black Rose -
climbing out the window with the very book they want. The
Black Rose escapes, and now the PCs have another mystery on
their hands. There are clues in the abandoned building -
maybe the Black Rose drops something, maybe the vendor has
some revealing dying words - and the chase is on. Over the
course of the hunt, the PCs learn bits and pieces of the
Black Rose mystery, and begin to realise that at the heart
of the matter are the very conspiracies they were hoping to
uncover... Suddenly, the Black Rose begins to look like a
better ally than enemy. Can they find her, or contact her?
Can they communicate their intentions to her? And if they
get word to her, what will her reaction be?
- written and formatted by andi jones
(andi@angelwerks.com)
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