A Dark Cloud Over London/Jack

Jack
Girl Genius
Plays in A Dark Cloud Over London

SKILLS

Great (+4): Girl with a Quantum Brain (S), Technological Toybox (S)

Good (+3): Athletics, Street Rat

Fair (+2): Resolve, Alertness

Average (+1): Deceit, Fisticuffs, Marksmanship

UNIQUE SKILLS

Girl with a Quantum Brain (7)

• Workspace, Craft, Repair, Dismantle, Information, Languages
• Power Tier: Superhuman
• Major Conviction (-2): "I´ll learn how it ALL works!"
  

Jack´s extraordinary mind allows her supreme mastery of the sciences and near-instant understanding of patterns such as language. At times, she argues that her machinery work simply is an act of communication, a language spoken in different words.

Street Rat (1)

• Environment/Urban, Information, Networking, Hide, Skulk
• Power Tier: Extraordinary
• Major Complication (-2): Poor, unwanted and regrettably female
  

Growing up on the streets, she has learned the necessary survival skills.

Technologickal Toybox (11)

• Variable (Scene) x4
• Power Tier: Superhuman
• Major Conviction (-2): "I can fix it!"
• Minor Delay (-1)
• Major Focus (-2)
  

Jack´s special goggles, toolbelt and bags - she has a thousand little gadgets in her possession, and is always ready to configure them to taste.

GIFTS

• Skilled x2 (-1 Refresh): +10 skill points.

STRESS

Health Composure Reputation

OOO OOO OO OOO

REFRESH

Base Refresh: 8 (Mid-Century)

Gifts: -1

Power Tiers: -5

Adjusted Refresh: 2

Humble beginnings

Jack was born in absolute poverty - she never knew a father (although she was famliar with many men coming and going from her mother´s hospitality), and her mother passed away with the pox. Left to fend for her own, the young girl was sent to a state orphanage that was barely more than a sweatshop - the owners had her and the others whoring and thieving, so Jack escaped with a gaggle of friends to fend for themselves best they could.

Follies of Youth

With a few years of experience (though not nearly as much savvy that they felt they had), the group and various other young stragglers formed a gang - "the Rooftop Runners", making a living by grifting, petty thievery or - most importantly - by acting as ´confidential couriers´ to the actual gangs. Habitually using the rooftops of the slums to avoid thief-takers and rival gangs, they earned their nickname that was soon worn as a badge of honor. Young Jack, like most of the girls she knew, started dressing and acting like a boy to at least marginally minimize the risk of becoming a target for street predators.

First Awakenings

At the age of twelve, Jack suffered from an increasing amount of terrible headaches - and in te middle of the year was struck with a terrible fever. No one knew what to do except keep her and feed her, and she seemed to hover between life and death for days. When she came to, things turned out... different. Whatever it was - something that she had come aross, some mysterious doodad that she had carried or simply coming of proper age to harness her potential - her Strangeness came out. It started with small things - rudimentary if bright inventions made out of street junk. To the wonder of her comrades, she started to invent and learn at a breakneck pace. With these new cognitive functions enabled, she knew a hunger she had never faced before - spending most of her time breaking into personal libraries and stealing or copying volumes only to absorb them repidly before throwing them away, she barely made time to assist her allies. The most haphazardly constructed of her new inventions, though, helped immensly; the Rooftop Runners could now leap across the buildings on spring-heeled shoes, open any lock with marvelous skeleton keys and dissolve glass panes with sprays of miracuous compounds. Needless to say, this brought both notoriety and fame.

(I´m also guessing that the Kerberos Club first got wind of her - maybe some of them even covertly supplied her with easy "steals" of complex volumes of academic knowledge just to see what would happen? This might be an opening for Daniel!)

Mysterious Origins

As Jack internalized her knowledge and newfound powers, she came to the concusion that she needed to do more. As she read up on philosophies and political knowledge, she suddenly had context for her life of oppression. As she consumed newspapers and novels, she started to name that black feeling in the pit of her stomach. Injustice. And so started her personal crusade, though she was still a child at heart and had a hard time to find the will to see a bigger picture; her people were oppressed by corrupt landlords, crooked cops, predatory pimps, thugs and a thousad more varieties of human (and at times, inhuman) parasites. Damn if she wasn´t going to teach ´em to mind their fooking manners.

Largely separating from the Runners to go her own way, she kept in touch with her friends while working behind the scenes - at night, behind closed doors, wherever evil bastards reared their ugly heads - to make some justice of her own.

Great Failing

It was fire that brought it all down; it didn´t even have to do with the Crocodile Gang or Special Branch or anything. A house on Carrol Street caught fire and it all went up in smoke; people screaming, getting trampled, getting burned alive or choked by smoke. Still recuperating after her fight against the enforcer Boss Tooth, Jack never the less did her best to try to put the fires out, to save the people. It didn´t help; no matter what gadgets she used, she was limted by being just one person. In the end, many people lost their lives and families - and Jack lost most of the Runners. She´s more lonely than ever now, but she´s vowed to do better. To learn more. To not be unprepared again.