Toad, Keeper of the Keys

[kaomera]

Concept: Horrible little git / Keeper of the Keys / (Rocky Rococo)

Character Name: Toad

Toad is based on a concept that I came up with for my Black Company game. I wanted something to replace the concept of the Annals, the “glue that binds them together”. I came up with the Coffers, the combined treasuries of the mercenary forces that combined to form the (as yet unnamed) mercenary unit. At the same time, I wanted Toad to be a kind of benchmark of odiousness, the low below which the PCs would not dip. I figured there would be something of a temptation to create a bunch of evil bastards (not really, my players are better than that, IMHO), and that kind of ruins one of the dynamics of the Black Company, where the protagonists may not exactly be White Hats, but they're the best thing going... (Yes, I am aware this is completely beyond what I should be laying out as a BW GM... I also came up with the character before I had gotten my hands on the books...) I envisioned him as a cross between Rocky Rocco (of Nick Danger / Firesign Theater infamy) and every Assistant Manager I have ever worked under. The number one feature of his personality is that he's petty. He is also an ugly dwarf (not the Stock) with very, very questionable morals. I was more concerned that he be horrible to have to deal with and not the type you would leave unattended, rather than actually being evil. Just annoying. I figured he would end up being the “Keeper of the Keys” by a suitably twisted logic: 1) Everyone is watching him all the time, anyway. You're going to want to watch the Keeper anyway, and this way you don't need to split your attention. 2) No-one wants to associate with him in the first place. The Keeper is a lonely position, because you hold the Keys (and thereby, effectively, access to the contents of the Coffers), no-one will gamble with you (they might be winning their own money...). And Tonk is a huge part of the mercenary “society” in Glen Cook's books. 3) He's too petty and miserly to let anything go easily, when it comes to spending the units' money. An admirable trait in a paymaster, I guess, and he's not really greedy as such... Money won't buy him happiness but it will buy him an asskicking if someone wants his. 4) He has no real self-worth. Actually, he still doesn't, but the Keys do have value to the unit and thereby to him. And he has the Keys...

Lifepaths: Son of A Gun -> Outcast Urchin -> Smuggler -> Moneylender -> Blackmailer -> Quartermaster
Note: I just used “Professional Soldier” for “Mercenary”; seemed appropriate.

Age: B36

Stats: Pe:B5 Wi:B5 Ag:B4 Sp:B3 Po:B2 Fo:B4

Attributes: Re:B4 Ste:B5 He:B2 MW:B9 Hesitation: 5 Faith: none Presence: 5 paces Resources: ???

PTGS: Su: 3B Li: 5B Mi: 6B Se: 7B Tr: 8B Mo: B9

Skills: Inconspicuous Wi B4
Streetwise Pe B2
Sleight of Hand Ag B2
Persuasion Wi B2
Falsehood Wi B3
Appraisal Pe B2
Law-wise Pe B2
Forgery Pe/Ag B2
Stealthy Sp B2
Accounting Pe B2
Haggling Wi B2
Currency-wise Pe B2
Ugly Truth Pe B4
Administration Pe B2
Accounting Pe B2
Haggling Wi B2
Logistics Pe B3
Intimidation Wi B2
Knives Ag B2
Maces Ag B2

Gear: ???

Spells: none.

Facets: none.

Association: Circles B2, Affiliation: the unit 1D, Reputation: evil little git 1D

Contacts: ???
Note: Contacts would be in the unit, I guess. Along with Gear and such he has a total of 68 Resources points to spend... That's quite a bit and I have no idea where to start yet.

Traits: Sea Legs, Addicted, Paranoid, Penny-wise, Cold-Hearted, Light Sleeper, Diminutive Stature, Unctuous
Note: Would have added “Petty” as a character trait if I had one more point. I am greatly tempted to GM fiat it in for “Addicted”.

Beliefs:
The world exists to make me suffer, but it picked the wrong bastard to mess with.
Human life is worthless, but I keep The Keys.
Anything that I can pry loose was not nailed down. (???)
Note: Third Belief needs to be changed, it's far too metaphorical and probably only means anything to me. I was going to go with “Cop didn't see it, I didn't do it.”, but that seemed inappropriate for the setting.

Instincts:
Never let them see me smile
If I am surprised, always check that the Keys are around my neck.
???
Note: Are those ok for Instincts? I need to come up with one more, in any case.

[luke]

ok. you love this guy. it's obvious. you've been talking about him for two weeks.

why not make the first part of your campaign about him? why not force him into the spotlight?

He's only the paymaster, so presumably there's a Captain over his head. What did he do that got the players' characters REALLY pissed off? But they can't off him or even really bad mouth him for fear of getting kicked out of the unit?

I see a lot of nice, meaty conflict possible around such a character. Tomorrow I'll try to reburn him myself and see what I come up with. (What's up with Son of a Gun? Take Born Peasant if you want your extra trait point, sheesh.)

And, I think you're missing a really obvious instinct:
"Always keep the keys around my neck (nobody touches them but me!)."

-L

Edit: Medieval professional soldiers were mercenaries. One and the same.

[Piikki]

Is this character going to be pc or npc ?

[Paka]

Instinct:

- If someone takes my keys, kill anyone in my way of getting them back.


Because this character is rather begging for those keys to be stolen, right?

[kaomera]

Here's the fiction bit I came up with to introduce the characters to the game, and which partially spawned Toad... I had not posted it because it's LONG...

The inn was dark and cramped, full of smoke and sweat and the sound of dozens of close comrades avoiding conversation. They crowded the tables and benches, or crouched on the floor, or in a few cases stood guard rather needlessly by the doors of the place. These men, with their proliferation of spears and axes, clubs, and other assorted tools of their trade where the only souls present, and none would likely be fool enough to disturb their purpose this night. To all outward appearances, the assembled crew might seem as motley as their gear; and yet there was, for perhaps the last time, a kind of palpable unity to their presence. All effort of concentration within the radius of the flickering shadows cast by the piled kindling alight in the common room hearths was focused upon the wide, worn wooden stairs leading upwards to the rented rooms.

Down these stairs slowly, supporting himself heavily on the banister, came the tall, fair man who they knew as Rake, and more lately as The Lieutenant. He smiled at them, and the pallor that threatened to overwhelm him thawed the iciness that would normally characterize that gesture upon his face. The two bears of men who shadowed him closely showed concern deep in the normally grimly dark caverns where their eyes peered out of the tangled undergrowth of hair and beard that they passed off as faces. Reaching the foot of the stairs, The Lieutenant allowed these two to help him into one of the only real chairs in the place, set upon a wine crate where it commanded a fair view of the room. He did his best to remain bolt upright in the chair, and to keep the pain from his face, and it was only when he turned his gaze to the hands in his lap to collect his thoughts that any of the assembled men allowed their gaze to shift even momentarily. Those who did almost universally turned their eyes to a twisted little stump of a man who returned a mean, reptilian glare as he worked at manhandling a heavy chest down the stairs.

“Boys,” The Lieutenant began, his voice breaking in a pained half-whisper. He stopped, cleared his throat, and began again; this time in something much closer to this normal forceful tenor: “Boys, here's how it stands...” He looked around the room, as much to soak in their undivided attention as for dramatic effect. “Wist is ours, for the moment. Skyshaker is as dead as any wizard will ever be, and his forces here are broken for good. Our counterattack shattered the sally force before it could get back within the walls, and even if any of the remains still wants a fight they will not pose any serious threat.” He stopped, hoping to see the slow shift in posture that came with the end of the fighting, but when it failed to emerge he continued on to the worse parts of their situation. “The Cabal's besieging troops can't have been run off that far, and I expect they will retake possession of this city by this time of the evening two days from now, if not sooner. And that brings us to the matter of contracts...”

As if to underscore that point, the chest that had been bumping it's way down the stairs thumped heavily onto a table by the stairs, eclipsing the head of it's guardian until he could clamber up to stand on the stool beside it. He swung his evil gaze around like a green recruit trying to fend off the enemy with an inadequate spear, and for once none begrudged him his mean temper or wretched manner. This was “the coffers”, and it was Toad's place to guard it, and he had the job by the vice of being the most vile excuse for a human being in the room. Any plot to make off with whatever meager fortune that chest might contain would have crawled like some sort of blood-starved leech through the swamps of his mind long before; and without the whole of the company watching him at all times there was almost no end to the mischief the little man might have gotten up to. And it certainly didn't hurt that, as the bearer of “the keys”, he was permanently barred from the only social interaction that no man here would ever pass up, namely a hand or a dozen of Tonk.

One of Rake's bodyguards cleared his throat (it was both completely irrelevant and impossible to tell which), and he continued. “When we reformed after the breakthrough went bad, we put off most talk of pay. We where rightly more concerned with getting out of this thing alive, and I think we all figured that in a few weeks we would all just split up and cash out on our units' original contracts. Well, it's been the longest, nastiest 'few weeks' I would bet anyone has ever seen, and it's taken it's toll. If we round up every camp follower we can find, and press them into service we will barely have a hundred. And even the smallest of the units we formed from was contracted on the basis of a hundred men serving.” He looked away now, gazing off into memory, “I seriously doubt anyone who might have believed that the Cabal would pay us off if it thought it could get out of it survived the last few months...”

“According to traditions started over a hundred years ago, in the days of the White Rose, the Black Company, and their struggle against the Lady Dominator, we ought to be electing a new Captain now. But we all agreed when we got into this thing that we would wait on that until we where out of immediate danger, in favor of having a solid tactical command. Well, we aren't all out of the woods yet. Literally, since it seems to me our only hope of making it free is to march out of here by the Clouds road. We'll be taking any supplies we can lay hands on; I know there wasn't supposed to be any looting, but if we aren't getting paid then screw that. That still isn't going to make it much less of a rough trip. There may be a contract we can pick up around Deal, and the rumors about the Usurpers seem to be getting more consistent, if not more believable... But there also might be nothing. And marching two months for nothing doesn't sound too great right now. But that's not something I really need to worry about...”

He paused to catch his breath and to steel himself for what came next. When he began again, his voice was lower and he avoided the sea of eyes staring at him. “I'm sure all of you know by now that I got run through my gut pretty good in that last push up in the mansion. We've been trying to get the fever to break in the week since then, but no luck. I'm only standing at all because of Stalker's magics...” For once he seemed at a loss for words, and the men around him grew agitated as they realized that for more than a day no-one could remember having seen the spry wizard who always seemed to be everywhere in camp at once. No one said anything, and The Lieutenant made no further comment on the subject, but the situation was clear. As clear as when he had shown up at the front lines when they where storming Skyshaker's last holdout at the mansion. Three hundred had immediately volunteered and then nearly as fast been reduced to a bare handful too wounded to throw themselves any further twords their dooms.

“I'm asking any who can to cash out now, get the hell out of here, and find yourselves some kind of a life.” His voice was nearly a whisper now, and the crowd was even more motionless and silent than they had been. “I know there's some of you who can't do that. Whether you have a price on your head, or if you're so foxed you just couldn't be trusted in the henhouse anymore, or whatever... But if you can't say that there's no other place for you with utter and complete honesty, you're going to take the silver Toad has for you, and you're going to get away from all this shit, out of the city tonight any find yourselves wives and families and farms...”

“That's an order.”

[kaomera]

Is this character going to be pc or npc ?

Sorry, NPC.

ok. you love this guy. it's obvious. you've been talking about him for two weeks.

why not make the first part of your campaign about him? why not force him into the spotlight?

Him and Rake and Bjonn and Bjonn. Toad is stuck in my head because he's causing me problems (how fitting). I was trying desperately not to force him into the spotlight, especially since I don't have the BITRz for my PCs yet.

It would work, tho. I can sidestep the whole question of "Are the players going to buy into the Coffers idea or not?" by having Toad (and the Coffers? Or does it get left behind? Hrmmm...) go missing (snatched) right off the bat. Even better if I can convince them "Look, you have to keep an eye on this git, or he'll be off kicking dogs and biting babies!" or somesuch. So, they're running off to stop him doing anything nasty (or else they aren't), and it turns out he's been grabbed by someone who wants to use him as leverage, and they have to teach Deal (or somewhere else if they don't go there) not to mess with them, their stuff, their friends, or even their noxious little oaf...

He's only the paymaster, so presumably there's a Captain over his head. What did he do that got the players' characters REALLY pissed off? But they can't off him or even really bad mouth him for fear of getting kicked out of the unit?

There was Rake, but he's dead, thus freeing up the position. One of the PCs may end up there, or it may be an NPC. That was actually one of the few things (like the unit name) that I didn't want to touch as GM. Let the players decide.

I see a lot of nice, meaty conflict possible around such a character. Tomorrow I'll try to reburn him myself and see what I come up with. (What's up with Son of a Gun? Take Born Peasant if you want your extra trait point, sheesh.)

It's my first shot at actually Burning a character. Also, I was at once having problems getting an exact fit to the GURPS / RQ ideas I had floating around in my head and why I was so dead-set on using the exact Character Burner rules and not pushing any points.

It's sad/funny but I think I could have burned two or three characters from scratch and worked up nearly as much as I have on Toad in the amount of time I spent twiddling LPs and Traits for him...

As for Son of a Gun, it just caught my eye, especially since there is no "Born Urchin" LP (for obvious reasons). Six LPs may be a bit much, but it gets him near where I want in terms of age. I guess I really don't need Urchin and having both Moneychanger and Quartermaster seems redundant now... But that makes him younger. I had dropped Kidnapper and Pillager; Kidnapper now seems less appropriate, but Fence would fit... Yeah, I'm gonna stop now, I need to go baek t3h cakes.

And, I think you're missing a really obvious instinct:
"Always keep the keys around my neck (nobody touches them but me!)."

Cool...

Edit: Medieval professional soldiers were mercenaries. One and the same.

Good, just wanted to make sure I had that right.

[kaomera]

I thought of something today... I have been thinking of the characters as "going to Deal", and assuming that they where traveling to a new area they had not visited before. That's actually a trick I often use, as it means I don't have to write tons of material on the setting of the campaign, which in turn leaves more freedom to move the story in different directions.

I don't really need to do that with BW, and if the characters are instead "going back to Deal", then it should actually be fairly easy to work up a bunch of Reputations and Affiliations...