Adelaide Langbard Mk II

The Mad Scientist's Daughter

Your father was the Margrave of Langbard Manor, a Gothic mansion which looms on the hills above Horizon. He lived his life in the traditional Byronic manner expected of his breed until something tragic happened. Possibly it took his wife from him - he doesn't seem to have one anymore. Certainly it took his eldest daughter away.

He reacted as any man sensible of his position would, which is to say that he threw himself headfirst in forbidden arts in a doomed effort to retrieve his lost loved ones. He created an effigy of brass and clockwork, and bound a divine fire within to grant it life.

That's you.

Being a replacement daughter is hard when you have no memories of the original one's life. It is especially hard when your father is a mad scientist in the throes of grief, and you remind him of his loss every time he sees you. Out of gratitude for being created, you did your best. It was not your fault. You told yourself that over and over, and it being more or less true, you eventually came to to believe it, at which point the only logical conclusion was to blame him for being crazy and unfair.

… this is also somewhat true, but it strained an already difficult relationship.

So you were almost glad when your younger brother went missing, because it gave you something to focus on. I say almost because you actually like your little brother a lot. You got along. It's traditional for siblings to bug one another, but you bugged one another in the most affectionate possible manner. He thought having a robotic big sister was awesome, and you liked taking care of him. It wasn't high-stress like dealing with your father. It wasn't awkward like talking to the townsfolk. He was just fun.

Now he's gone. Your father has absented himself as well - you suspect that he either knows something about the disappearance, or he went looking and found trouble. Either way, you feel you should look into it.

Somehow, you ended up enrolled in School instead. Maybe someone here can help?

Adelaide Langbard Mk II

Academic Ability: Untested
Athletic Ability: Excellent
Blood Type: n/a
Favorite Food: n/a
Age: Eternally 15
Animal: Gyroscope
Clubs: None

Appearance: You are a slender young woman in the classic Victorian Ophelian mold, with aristocratic features and a somewhat delicate air. In fact you are not delicate in the least, being wrought from steel and brass, but you still manage to give that impression. You are elegant and composed and maybe a little intimidating, the sort of girl who might find herself without a prom date because nobody could work up the nerve to ask her. (Being a robot probably doesn't help.)

You wear the black and gold School uniform. Outside of classes, you typically wear formal and old-fashioned things like gowns. You have burnished copper hair - literally. It's actually copper wire.

Mortal Skills

Superior Vitality 2 - You are impressively strong. Also, you are made of metal.
Superior Robot 2 - You are a robot. You don't need food or drink, you have a perfect memory, and you are good at being logical and missing the point of jokes.
Superior Physical Control 1 - You move with unnatural grace and precision.
Aristocratic Hauteur 2 - You are trained to act as a Langbard should.
Dutiful 1 - You are accustomed to doing what is expected of you.
Student 0 - You are not sure what to make of this 'school' experience.
Dealing with Mad Scientists -1 - Despite or perhaps because of your considerable experience, you are not comfortable around mad scientists.

Perks

Bond 2 - I must remain dignified and in control.
Connection 2 - Your little brother. You were close to him.
Connection 1 - Inigo Malizumi. He's bad for you, but you're drawn to him anyway.
Connection 1 - Kun. He reminds you of your brother, a bit.
Cool 1 - You're hard to rattle.

Miraculous Arcs and Powers

Child of the Ash 2

You have a spark of the primordial fire of creation inside you. This is a source of considerable angst and struggle in your life, as described in more detail under The Fires Within. But in the meantime, you get some pretty neat powers out of it!

Your Estate is the Divine Fire, a realm of brilliance and sound and fury, lightning roaring amidst red clouds. Your Mood is Rage or possibly Passion, a kind of pent-up fury and frustration. Your kaiju form is something I haven't figured out yet, but it's going to be awesome, promise.

Immortality
Your body is only about as tough as one would logically expect a robot to be, but the divine spark within you is a lot tougher. You tend to shrug off most damage as cosmetic, flickering light or electricity shoring up your failing body if need be; even if blown to smithereens, you'd probably hang around as a lightning-sylph and eventually reform. You can be inconvenienced and even harmed by sufficiently stupendous catastrophes, but actually dying…?

Probably not.

The Gathering Storm (Set the Mood)
You may invoke this power at will, and the place you're in will grow more turbulent, strained. After a few minutes this qualifies for a Region Property:

Something is about to snap.

You can also invoke this as a targeted effect to make someone more angry, frustrated or stressed over the course of the next few minutes.

Suddenly, STORMS (Mood-splosion)
Once per book, you may invoke The Gathering Storm on a grand scale, throwing a scene into chaos. This functions essentially as the following wish:

"I wish this [place/situation] would go wild."

This is an indiscriminate weapon with highly variable effects; it could theoretically transform a peaceful street or student assembly into a screaming mob or free-for-all fight, but if the HG and group would prefer to avoid mob violence it could just as easily make everyone run around flailing and confused, or cause buildings or street signs or trees or whatever to uproot and begin hurling themselves around, or call down a literal storm.

Wicked Mode
You may pin up your hair to invert your Mood from Rage to Calm. This changes the Region Property you create to:

There's no need to get worked up about it.

While your tactical mood-splosion becomes the following wish:

"I wish everyone in this [place/situation] would stop caring so much."

It is worth noting that these powers may be considered bleak in certain instances. It is also worth noting that you spend more time in Wicked Mode than not, which may or may not be good for you.

Kaiju Form
You can transform into a giant monster. You've never done it before, but the potential is definitely there, ready to be unleashed. You aren't sure what this would be like but suspect you would become a raging creature of storms and fire, like a many-legged thunder dragon or a serpent made of lightning or something like that.

Shed Scale
When in Kaiju Form, you can ignore size-related Obstacles. You're as big or small as you need to be, within reason, even if that doesn't really make sense.

Defensive Shield
When in Kaiju form, you can establish a defensive shield instead of taking a wound. This is effectively a wish:

"I wish I'd had something to deal with [that attack]."

Otherworldly Divination (Quest Miracle)
You may connect to your inner world, or possibly to related phenomena, via dreams and dream-like reflective quests.

Protect (Quest Miracle)
You can strengthen or bolster something related to your Estate, or use your Estate to strengthen something else, via an appropriate quest.

XP and Quests

Emotion XP: Awww!
Other people may give you an XP token when your troubles make them wince and/or feel sorry for you. You also get XP when your tragic life provokes others to laughter by being absurd and melodramatic, which might actually be more common in this genre.

Basic Quest

The Fires Within 1/9 XP

Your creation was an act of hubris. Your father in his grief called down something divine and bound it in a cage of copper and steel, and now a spark of that divinity burns within your heart, a primal fire which rages against its chains. It is not yet clear whether your father's deeds were blasphemous and wondrous; it is possible that he chained a sacred thing and made it monstrous through captivity, just as it is possible that he harnessed a force of pure destruction and turned it to better ends. You don't know yet. Part of you would like to think that the fire within needs to be tamed, kept controlled. It frightens you. It wouldn't be easy to transform it into something better, but it wouldn't challenge your worldview, would not force you to reexamine assumptions you'd made about life and the way things should be. Part of you, though… part of you wants that. That part of you is insanely frustrated. It wants to shatter the mold you've been living in all your life, become free. You just don't know if that's a good idea. Is that really what you want, or is that just the fire urging you to cut loose so that it can escape?

Oh, how you envy organic people who can talk about 'following their heart' as if this is somehow a surefire method of finding the right path.

You earn XP for this quest when you express this duality in play. Create a two-sided sign which reads In Control on one side and A Wild Heart on the other. The former represents your default state: you are Adelaide Langbard Mk II, dignified young heiress of a noble and ancient lineage. The latter emerges when you chafe at these bonds, when you express anger or passion or act out somehow. When you flip the sign from one side to the other, collect a bonus XP (maximum of 1 per scene).

Storyline Quests

The New Girl 2/15 XP

Your father didn't want you to attend School. Perhaps he holds a grudge against the current or former Principal. Perhaps he felt that - being a learned man - he could provide a better education than any proletariat public school. Perhaps there's some kind of mental parasite which preys on aristocratic widowers and makes them isolate themselves and their family for no good reason - that would explain a lot, actually. Whatever the cause, the outcome is clear: you've spent most of your life inside the family mansion, and have little experience with the outside world.

But recently, with your father gone, you've started attending School. You feel it will broaden your horizons - or maybe you're just afraid of the truancy officers. You want to fit in, but - so very strange! Do people actually eat 'lunch' in this 'cafeteria'? Does the stuff they serve even count as food? Are not restrooms private places, never to be spoken of in polite company and certainly not shared? Are you truly expected to do schoolwork at home?

You are not accustomed to this!

You can earn a bonus XP at any time (but only once every 10 posts/scene) by declaring "I am not accustomed to…" and filling in some aspect of the scene you find strange or unfamiliar.

Family Matters 4/21 XP

Your little brother has been gone for months, and you want to get him back. or at least make sure he's safe. In the very worst case, you at least want to know what happened. Also, your father has been away for an unusually long time; you should probably look into that as well. This quest isn't just about finding your family, although that should probably happen at some point, but about exploring your relationship to them and how they've shaped you, and maybe introducing some family secrets.

The Hollyhock God may award you 3 XP when:

  • you make an important gesture reaffirming (or rejecting) your dedication to your family;
  • you encounter a member of your family;
  • you get into a row with your family, or a row about family in general;
  • three chapters slip by without obvious IC progress on the quest.

You can earn each bonus once, for a total of 12 XP.

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest through:

  • sympathizing with or assisting the lost and bereaved;
  • your dreams call you to a place of danger;
  • listening to stories about your ancestors
  • reminiscing about your childhood;
  • lamenting the slow progress of your investigations;
  • reluctantly allowing yourself to be dragged away from it;
  • reluctantly allowing others to get involved with it.

Mutable Stats

Free-Floating XP: 6

Will: 6/8
MP: 8/5

Issues:
Complex 1 - You're trying a little too hard.
Mystery 2 - A lot of what's going on with and around you is connected.
Something to Deal With 1 - There's something nagging at you.

Health Levels:
Normal
Normal
Tough
Divine
Divine

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License