Post by Rigil Kent on Mar 27, 2019 14:05:14 GMT -6
I'm currently leaning toward using a revised version of the Mace Hunter character in the pregen characters that Pelgrane Press put out. And because I love the hell out of The Man From UNCLE movie, I'm going to sort of use Cavill's take on Napoleon Solo with some tweaks (like ... he uses his natural British accent.) I mean, why not? I've already got two other characters with Cavill as an avatar (Kingmaker & the Saturday Generica game that Giger ran), so why not a third? The initial Background notes are preliminary and pending changes to tie him in with other PCs.
Nationality: British
Personality: Engaging, charming, extroverted, convincing, seductive, chameleon-like, hollow, haunted. You're so good at acting and thinking on your feet that almost no one knows how dead you are inside.
Background: The son of an English baronet and his equally highborn wife, Charles should have grown up in the lap of luxury due to his birth, never truly wanting for anything, but that was far from the case as his father, Sir Robert, was notably impoverished due to his … eccentric interests. Even among the peerage, his parents were considered strange due principally to their obsessions with history, both traditional and esoteric.
At 13, Charles was enrolled in Eton College, though his family could ill afford it, prompting many of his peers to presume (correctly, as it would turn out) that he was relying heavily on financial support; this, along with his full name, naturally led to a great deal of mockery from the other students which ultimately had a serious impact on his general outlook.
At 15, Charles’ entire family - his parents, his two brothers Hannibal and Napoleon, and his sister, Cleo, were murdered while at an archaeological dig site in the Middle East. To the surprise of most, Charles did not leave Eton afterward, prompting many to whisper that his father had actually been a government agent doing the bidding of Her Majesty’s Government and this was repayment, but as far as Charles learned, this was simply a kindness by the Eton Headmaster who was an old friend of Sir Robert.
Graduating at 18, Charles entered Oxford where he floundered for several years, despite having high marks, particularly in the School of Drama. At 23, he departed the university, his degree two semesters shy of completion. To his few close friends, he commented that he intended to spend a few years ‘finding himself’ but in truth, he had been recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) who very quickly took a bored, charismatic borderline sociopath and turned him into a chameleon who would infiltrate terrorist groups, earn their trust, and then betray them.
His last official op was also the worst. A multi-nation taskforce called for someone to infiltrate a Bratva cell, gather intel, then make contact so the authorities could shut it down. Charles did his part, but the bloody FSB flubbed the takedown. 28 people dead, including the woman who loved him and her three children. That's when he shut most of himself off and walked away.
Some thoughts that immediately come to mind:
Nationality: British
Personality: Engaging, charming, extroverted, convincing, seductive, chameleon-like, hollow, haunted. You're so good at acting and thinking on your feet that almost no one knows how dead you are inside.
Background: The son of an English baronet and his equally highborn wife, Charles should have grown up in the lap of luxury due to his birth, never truly wanting for anything, but that was far from the case as his father, Sir Robert, was notably impoverished due to his … eccentric interests. Even among the peerage, his parents were considered strange due principally to their obsessions with history, both traditional and esoteric.
At 13, Charles was enrolled in Eton College, though his family could ill afford it, prompting many of his peers to presume (correctly, as it would turn out) that he was relying heavily on financial support; this, along with his full name, naturally led to a great deal of mockery from the other students which ultimately had a serious impact on his general outlook.
At 15, Charles’ entire family - his parents, his two brothers Hannibal and Napoleon, and his sister, Cleo, were murdered while at an archaeological dig site in the Middle East. To the surprise of most, Charles did not leave Eton afterward, prompting many to whisper that his father had actually been a government agent doing the bidding of Her Majesty’s Government and this was repayment, but as far as Charles learned, this was simply a kindness by the Eton Headmaster who was an old friend of Sir Robert.
Graduating at 18, Charles entered Oxford where he floundered for several years, despite having high marks, particularly in the School of Drama. At 23, he departed the university, his degree two semesters shy of completion. To his few close friends, he commented that he intended to spend a few years ‘finding himself’ but in truth, he had been recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) who very quickly took a bored, charismatic borderline sociopath and turned him into a chameleon who would infiltrate terrorist groups, earn their trust, and then betray them.
His last official op was also the worst. A multi-nation taskforce called for someone to infiltrate a Bratva cell, gather intel, then make contact so the authorities could shut it down. Charles did his part, but the bloody FSB flubbed the takedown. 28 people dead, including the woman who loved him and her three children. That's when he shut most of himself off and walked away.
Some thoughts that immediately come to mind:
- Lots of holes in his family's background for the GM to play with.
- The choice of Oxford was intentional due to the "skewered" scene in Casino Royale. I was actually briefly tempted (and may still do so depending on character adjustments) to go the full-on Bond route with him being a " former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches." Heh. Given that he attended Oxford, though, if this guy dies, I'm totally ripping off Bond as a former classmate of his.
- Having the IRA cell be who he infiltrated is an artifact of the Mace Hunter background and honestly doesn't make a lot of sense today as the IRA really aren't terrorists anymore. It almost makes more sense for him to have infiltrated a Hamas terror cell in the West Bank and the Israelis have botched the takedown, or an anarchist's cell in the States and the FBI screw the pooch. In the original revised characters, this was for a tie-in to the Oliver Quinn PC, who was a former IRA bomber, so if someone else has a super criminal background, I could shift to that easily enough.