A Dark Cloud Over London/Major William Hodson

Major William Henry Hodgson
The Chosen of Kali
Plays in A Dark Cloud Over London

SKILLS

Great (+4): Avatar of Kali (A)

Good (+3): Bureaucracy; Blessings of the Black Mother (S)

Fair (+2): Marksmanship; Thuggee Initiate (E)

Average (+1): Academics; Arms; Horsemanship; Resolve

UNIQUE SKILLS

Avatar of Kali (9)

• Languages, Menace + Zone, Inspire + Psychic, Strike + Spray, Strike + Unusual: Withering
• Power Tier: Ascendant
• Major Complication (-2): Losing Myself in the Goddess
• Major Transformation (-2): Requires 3 Minutes, replaces "A Modern Colonial Officer" with "Kali Incarnate"
• Taxing (-2)

Using the rituals taught to him by the Phansigar High Priests, Hodgman can make himself the incarnation of the Goddess -- blue skin, long black hair, and many arms; a presence that is both awesome and terrible; and a touch that withers like the passage of a hundred years. It is a painful, draining process to channel the Goddess, however, and Hodgman worries that less of him remains with each use.

Blessings of the Black Mother (4)

• Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health]
• Power Tier: Superhuman
• Minor Complication (-1): A Taste for Opium

Kali desires a hale host; it will not do for her earthly vessel to fracture at the least damage. The Blessing does not come without cost, however; the constant thrum of the Goddess's presence in his mind has led him to renew his relationship with the powerful narcotics that the Thuggee once used to keep him docile.

Thuggee Initiate (9)

• Hide, Information, Initiative [Physical], Networking, Notice, Skulk, Strike
• Power Tier: Extraordinary
• Major Conviction (-2): The World Must Be Protected From What Is Within Me

In his time among the Phansigar cultists, Hodgman learned their way of assassination -- how to move without being seen, how to strike without warning, and how to kill in the manner that placates the Dark Mother.

WEAKNESS

Major Weakness: A Fractured Psyche

One does not become the dwelling place of an ancient and powerful goddess without some residual damage. Hodgman disguises his mental disquiet as best he can with a cultivated eccentricity, but in truth he is vulnerable to mesmerism, hypnosis, and similar forms of mental manipulation.

GIFTS

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

STRESS

Health Composure Reputation

OOO OO OOO O OOO

REFRESH

Base Refresh: 8 (Mid-Century)

Major Weakness: +2

Gifts: -1

Power Tiers: -7

Adjusted Refresh: 2

Humble Beginnings

Born to a respected London barrister and his respectable wife, Will grew up steeped in the beliefs and mores of the London bourgeoisie. Befitting a young man who perceives a perfect harmony among his personal fortunes, the glory of his nation's empire, and the spread of civilization itself, he used his father's connections to attain a commission with the East India Company. He took to his work with fervor, and proved himself a valuable asset for the Company; it was not long before he had earned several promotions, culminating in an important command in Bengal.

Youthful Follies

It was Will's misfortune to take up his command in the strife-filled years leading up to the Sepoy Mutiny. The native peoples chafed against Company rule, and the army that maintained order was riven along lines of skin color, religion, and politics. Under different circumstances, Will's enthusiasm for adventure might have made him beloved figure by his troops; in the powder keg of Bengal in the mid '50s, it was disaster. A minor protest by a minor Hindi sect became, thanks to Maj. Hodgman's ignorance, a full-fledged riot; thanks to his imprudence, it became a slaughter. Dubbed by the liberal press 'the Butcher of Bengal', Hodgman became infamous in India (and even, to a lesser extent, London) among critics of the Company; among the more jingoistic crowd, he was a cause celebre.

First Awakenings

The official fallout from the Butcher of Bengal incident was trivial - the Company gave him a slap on the wrist with one hand, and a pat on the back with the other. But Hodgman himself was unmoored by the barbarity he'd unleashed; he was hardly the only one to do such things in those bloody days, but the frightening truth was ... he had enjoyed it. Under the cover of medical leave, he took to wandering the continent which he'd helped administer but which he'd never understood. His journey exposed him to beliefs and practices unlike anything he'd even imagined, and that was only the barest hint of the Strangeness India had to offer. Little did he know, however, that as he was acquainting himself with the mysteries of India, the mysteries of India were doing likewise ...

Mysterious Origins

... in the form of a Phansigar cult. His reputation had preceded him, and the Kali-worshipping Thuggee had been informed by their elders that this westerner was to the be the Vessel of the Goddess. He was kidnapped in broad daylight in a Bombay market, drugged with opium, and spirited away to a remote mountain lair. There he was first tortured, then brainwashed, then trained; Hodgman's time among the Thuggee was a haze of opium smoke, occult initiation, and ritual murder. He learned of Raktavija, Whose Blood Will Drown the World, of the signs that foretell the Asura's Return, of the need for an Avatar to allow Kali to oppose him, and finally, that he was to be that Avatar.

As best he can piece together, Will believes that the ritual that invested him with the divine essence of Kali took place on the very day that Queen Victoria addressed Parliament in 1858. Whatever the case, he spent the next year coming to grips with the power that was within him, learning some measure of control, and coming to know -- in some ultimately superficial sense of 'know' -- the divine being within him. That knowledge allowed him to break the drug-fueled spell the Thuggee had cast over him, and he came to know there was something wrong, something dangerously wrong, with their belief that Kali must return, even as he was certain that something horrible approaches the world.

When Captain Crow, on assignment to tie up the East India Company's loose ends in the wake of its dissolution, came upon Hodgman in the remote mountain temple, the Butcher of Bengal sat in an opiated daze in the temple's sanctum sanctorum, alone but for the remains of the Thuggee who had had the misfortune of meeting the Goddess whom they'd worshipped. Will was quite ready to leave India behind.

Great Failing

There is something fundamentally broken in Will's psyche. Becoming the vessel for an ancient and divine power will tend to do that to anyone, mind, but this fracture existed before the gruesome ritual that made him what he is today. The horror of what he has done -- first for the Company, and then among (and finally to) the Thuggee-- and of what he is still capable of doing haunts him to this day.