matt_doyle

Okay. Last time, I gave a basic breakdown on the plot and history of the Lightning Age game. This time, I'm going for a who's who list. On a larger scale, talking about nations I've done this before once or twice, and I think I'll leave it at that, though a few things have changed. Because what's really interesting in a LARP is usually the characters. I wrote thirty characters and wound up with twenty-four players

First off, then, here's the crew of the Marid, an experimental U-Boat built by the Khanate-Caliphate-Carthage alliance, barely finished with construction when it launches.

Ghaffar Manga Ilkhan – the Khan's youngest and least-appreciated child, Ghaffar is a world-class genius whose physical frailties and clumsiness mean he has never ridden into battle as part of a cavalry charge. After personally designing this U-Boat and insisting on being mission commander, Ghaffar considers this an experiment to see if he is fit for combat.

Commodore Calico – an internationally feared pirate turned naval commander for the Khanate, Calico is not human. In 1895, a joint Zulu-Raj research project was attempting to create a clockwork analog computer that could contain a human consciousness. Clockwork androids, called proxies, are usually radio-controlled from a distance, but this one, with its machina analytica located internally, woke during a systems check, killed most of the facility, and stowed away on a ship, beginning an eight-year career in piracy. While in appearance, Calico can pass for human -- her features are a mixture of Thai and Cambodian -- in behavior she is cold, and very much driven by her id. An instability in her systems means she must feed on bioelectric energy to stay alive -- when mistaken for human, she has long been rumored to be a vampire.

Captain Wilhelmina d'Orange – Dutch smuggler, zeppelin pilot, and crypto-catholic, d'Orange's flamboyant exploits lead to her being hired by Shanyu Khan as well. Technically also a commodore, she has no use for her rank, and continues to call herself captain. A thrillseeker, d'Orange frequently aids socialists, British expatriates, and Vatican agents, both out of sympathy and a vestigial sense of duty -- her parents, themselves smugglers, embraced such causes, but d'Orange herself isn't really committed to anything but the pursuit of adventure.

Lin Qing An – diplomatic advisor to Ghaffar, Lin Qing An is a retired spy and assassin for the Khan, now put in the sinecure position of Deputy Minister or Propaganda. An expert in manipulation, sabotage, and seduction, he tends to introduce himself as "Qing An. Lin Qing An."

Princess Zadie – (Sadie Durriyya Leticia bint Cantara of the House of Hanover; aka Zadok Derleth): expatriate princess of Prussian-conquered England, Zadie was dropped in the Thames when her family tried to escape England during the Prussian invasion. A street urchin in London, totally ignorant of her identity, Zadie was caught by the Prussians as a jaded career criminal at age seven. Along with a boatload of other troublemakers, she was transported to the Prussian penal colony at Tunguska, put to work in the methane refineries that produced most of the world's fuel... and had a front-row seat to the vicious uprising that gave birth to the Tunguskan Dominion of the Great Old Ones. Fighting stenchadilloes at the feeding troughs for an extra bite to eat, she caught the eye of Yuri Sibilla, the psychotic theocrat who ruled Tunguska, and was trained as a berserker and bodyguard. To this day, pulp novels are written about the vicious exploits of Yuri's Butcher Girl. What these novels fail to mention, however, is that five years ago Yuri brought her along to an international auction -- Doktor Blitzkopf's kick-start to the Lightning Age -- where Zadie's distinctive birthmark was recognized by agents of her first cousin once removed, the Caliph. Promising her full meals and featherbeds, Zadie was spirited away to a life of luxury she was distinctly unprepared for. While it took years, her force of will and blunt insistence on the Tunguskan threat eventually lead to her deployment as a Marine, rather than her use as a diplomatic trophy of the Caliphate.

Pasha Maria Iosune de Cordoba – Zadie's handmaiden and bodyguard, a Basque-Spanish Janissary, Maria was made a noblewoman for her role in recovering the lost Princess. While her position as a Janissary means she does not have to hide her Christianity, however, Maria does have a secret -- she's a deep-cover agent of the Church, a retrieval expert for the Vatican Library. As such, she shares Zadie's extreme distaste for the Tunguskans, but her personal loyalty to Zadie has lead her into conflict with her loyalty to the Church more than once.

Caderousse Faria – a prisoner of the Khan, Caderousse Faria used to be a fraudulent mercenary. He deliberately threw fights, accepting bribes from fellow mercenaries so he could retreat with forces intact -- and his fellow captains, in turn, raved about his tactical genius and gave him good references wherever he went, ensuring he'd be hired to fight against them time and time again. When, in 1900, the Tunguskan army invaded Manchuria, they hired Caderousse as one of their generals. Suddenly, failure was not an option. Desperately driven to acts of unusual tactical genius, Caderousse found that the more he succeeded, the less likely these terrifying people were to let him go. Driven mad with fear and triumph, Caderousse was sent in disguise to spy on the Khan, but was captured. The Khan's doctors have spent two years trying to make him sane enough to pry useful information out of him, and so he has been brought along on this voyage as an expert and guide.

Alyssar – War-Queen and Elector of Carthage, Alyssar never meant to lead a secessionist movement. An angry, disaffected warrior and bastard daughter of a Monomotapan noble, a protest she lead reached the provinicial palace at the same moment the governor was assassinated by his butler, a man named Haruna Ashura. The two of them were catapulted to power on a wave of populist appeal, cobbling together a functioning rebel government... until Haruna, revealing himself as an agent of the Monomotopan Queen, tried to kill her as well. With Haruna gone, there is no-one she could surrender power to without leaving Carthage vulnerable to reprisal and re-absorption by its neighbors. Bitter, weary, and emotionally wounded by Haruna's betrayal, Alyssar is here not to destroy the Tunguskan technology, like her allies -- but to distract them long enough for her advisors to steal it.

Mudra Moustapha Shah – formerly an agent-provocateur for the Caliph, Mudra Moustapha Shah was imprisoned in Carthage when it was still a Caliphate backwater. Always one to play fast and loose with the rules, enjoying playing one side against the other, Mudra had been selling the traitors he was supposed to "disappear" to a Raj laboratory experimenting with Tunguskan science. As most of those scientists later perished in a lab on Madagascar, Mudra is the world's foremost expert on Tunguskan biotech... outside Tunguska itself.

Saba Bulsara – a former international lawyer who worked in the consulate circuit between the Caliphate and the Raj, Saba used to be the above-board half of Mudra Moustapha Shah's sting operations. The two were best friends, understanding if not approving of one another, the perfect counterparts... until Saba caught and prosecuted Mudra for war crimes. Ironically, without Mudra to watch her back, Saba herself was brought up on trumped-up charges by fearful, corrupt officials, and sent to the same prison her old friend was sentenced to. After release, she found herself drafted into the role of spin doctor and diplomatic advisor to Alyssar... working alongside Mudra once again.

Tamurlane Loyola – an observer sent by the Raj -- or is that the Vatican? Tamurlane is an amnesiac with apparently psychic powers. The Raj and the Vatican have each claimed to understand her abilities and know her past, but no-one is in a hurry to reveal them to her.