Emily Harrington
Contents
Character Name[edit]
Short description:[edit]
Statistics[edit]
Investigator Name: Emily Harrington Occupation: Artist(Painter/Illustrator) Colleges, Degrees: Completed Hobart High School, Sat in the back of Tas Uni Zoology lecture hall in Hobart. Birthplace: Hobart, Australia. Mental Disorders: Artistic Obsession of the moment. Sex: f Age: 24 Family & Friends: Parents, Brother and Aunt in Hobart. Lawyer friend in Melbourne. Wounds & Injuries: Marks & Scars:
Characteristics[edit]
STR 10
CON 11
SIZ 09
INT 16
POW 14
DEX 15
APP 12
EDU 13
HP: 11
Damage bonus? None
Idea: 80%
Know: 65%
Luck: 70%
SAN: 70
Skills[edit]
Accounting 10%
Anthropology 00%
Archaeology 00%
*Art: Sketching 35%
*Art: Watercolour 45%
Astronomy 00%
Bargain 25%
Biology 00%
Chemistry 00%
Climb 45%
Conceal 25%
Credit Rating 20%
Cthulhu Mythos 00%
Disguise 00%
Drive Auto 20%
Electrical Repair 10%
*Fast Talk 45%
First Aid 45%
Geology 00%
Hide 20%
History 25%
Jump 25%
Law 05%
Library Use 25%
Listen 30%
Locksmith 00%
Mechanical Repair 20%
Medicine 05%
Melee Weapon: Wood Axe 25%
*Natural History 50%
Navigate 25%
Occult 05%
Operate Hvy. Machine 00%
Other Language:Greek 05%
Other Language:Latin 05%
Persuade 25%
Pharmacy 00%
*Photography 25%
Physics 00%
Pilot 00%
Pilot 00%
Psychoanalysis 00%
*Psychology 45%
Ride 25%
Sneak 20%
*Spot Hidden 75%
Swim 25%
Throw 25%
Track 25%
Fist/Punch 50%
Head Butt 10%
Kick 25%
Grapple 25%
Martial Arts 00%
Dodge 50%
Handgun20%
Machine Gun 15%
Rifle 25%
Shotgun 30%
Languages:English 65%, Greek 05%, Latin 05%
*Indicates Artist Career Skill.
Weapons[edit]
Pocket Knife: 25%(Base), 1d4+DB(None), Touch, 1/Round, 9HP.
Clothing[edit]
2 Crepe Silk Summer Dresses, 1 Linen Summer Skirt, 1 Linen Summer Jacket, 1 Floral Pattern Cotton Knitted Jumper, 1 Pair Riding Trousers(Much repaired), 2 Cotton Blouses, 1 Summer Coat, 1 Expensive Beaded Silk Evening Dress("If I'm a widow, I might as well be a merry one..."), 1 Silk Evening Shawl, 3 Printed Silk Scarves, 3 Pairs Silk Gloves, 1 Modest Ladies Swimsuit, 3 Sets Silk Underclothing, 6 Pairs Silk Stockings in various colours, 1 Pair Woolen Socks, 1 Floral Brocade 'Dressing Gown'(Because Emily isn't quite sure how to pronounce 'Kimono'), 1 Ladies Straw Hat with Cloth Flower Decoration, 1 Felt Cloche Hat with Cloth Flower Decoration, 1 Beaded Headband, 2 Pairs Leather Ladies Dress Shoes(Sunday Best pair are slightly too small in fit...), 1 Pair Evening/Beach Sandals, 1 Pair Leather Ladies Riding Boots(Recently Re-soled), 1 Leather Satchel Style Shoulderbag, 1 Silk Evening Bag(Matches Shawl), 1 Toiletries Bag, 1 Makeup Compact with Mirror, 1 Ladies Wristwatch, 1 Gold Chain Necklace with small cross, and Engagement/Wedding Rings as Pendants, 1 Pair Gold and Pearl Drop Earrings and 1 Imitation Pearl Long Necklace.
Winter Wardrobe left in storage back in Melbourne with a friend.
Kit[edit]
1 Folding Pocket Camera & Carrycase, 1Doz Film (6 Exposures/film), 1 Portable Developer Kit & Wooden Box, Inc Instruction Leaflet, 1 Set Binoculars & Carrycase, 1 Folding Pocket Knife, Single blade, 1 Flashlight, Inc 3 Batteries, 6 Spare Batteries, 1 Compass & Case, 1 Set Watercolour Paints & Brushes, 1 Set Art Pencils & Gum Eraser, 2 Sketchbooks, 1 Wooden Portable Easel/Artist's Box, 1 Letter Writing Folio & Printed Tin Box, 2 Writing Tablets, 1 Fountain Pen, 1 Bottle Black Ink, 1 Roll Hemp Twine, 2 Decks Playing Cards & Printed Tin Box, 1 Pear's Cyclopedia, Most Recent Edition, 3 'Whodoneit' Paperback Novels with lurid covers (Free copies from previous jobs), 1 Travel Sewing Repair Kit & Small Printed Tin Box, 1 Large Leather Covered Wooden Hatbox with Carrystrap, 1 Large Floral Pattern Carpetbag for Clothing
Background and Notes[edit]
Emily Harrington was born to respectable and devoutly Anglican parents, and grew up on a farm near Hobart, in the shadow of three elder brothers. Despite an inauspicious birthday - All Hallows Eve! - she seem a less worrisome child than her siblings, dutiful, quiet, content to get her chores done then escape to hide away in the barn with a book, or sit for hours, high in a tree, horse grazing safely below, while she would just sit and watch the wildlife, often not returning before dusk, a grubby blonde ghost in the gumtrees.
No piece of blank paper, however, was safe near her. Margins of schoolbooks filled with leaping colts and tiny finches, fruit bandit possums coiling their way around the page edges, the backs of shopping lists gained troops of tiny fairy penguins in black ink, the feedstock accounts book gained a swarm of strange eyed goats nibbling at the corner of the title page, even the paper wrappings off the butcher's delivery vanished, only to reappear hung from the washing line, adorned with a myriad of brightly coloured beetles, moths and butterflies, and an empty 'Pennyworth of Rainbow' box of colours sitting on the laundry sink.
Emily's talent found a champion in her scandalously modern thinking Aunt, Mrs Ruby Mather, a woman with a fondness for annoying her staid sister, a taste for beautiful things, and the wealth of a businessman's wife to acquire them. Art lessons followed, much to the disapproval of her mother, as did frequent trips to Hobart Zoo, the State Cinema, and sitting quietly in the back of University lectures on Natural History.
She met a young man with a string of letters after his name, and a passion for writing weighty tomes on Zoology, who took one look at the beetles crawling across her notebook, asked if she would consider a illustration commission, and things rather blossomed from there. A productive partnership of author and illustrator seemed to be if not a marriage made in heaven, at least one that would have been satisfactory to both parties. Or would have, but for a war brewing in far away Europe.
When he left of the troop transport, he promised he'd write, and that he'd be back before she'd miss him. One letter arrived, with a reminder to contact the publisher about colour plates, and some observations on the behaviour of pelicans chasing a shoal of tuna. The next communication was from the war office, in the dry official language of death.
Emily went home to the farm, still not quite able to grasp that two of her brothers had joined her husband as gilded names on the domain war memorial, and that the amiable, confident giants who had filled the days of her childhood with teasing and noise were gone, leaving only the somehow smaller, grimmer shadow of her brother David to work the farm in silence.
Emily quietly left, without warning, but for a note to David*, before dawn, the morning after the day that the well intentioned suggestion by her parents that she might find the neighbour's son an agreeable marriage prospect was made over dinner. By the time her Mother knew she had left, she was already on the boat to Melbourne, a publisher's letter in her pocket, and a commission for thirty six colour plates of australian insects for a Professor at Melbourne Uni.
She never looked back, but she still writes to her brother, and her aunt, and has not actually starved as an artist, but isn't living on champagne either. Her published works include illustrations for a number of scientific studies of australian wildlife, a "utterly revoltingly sweet" series of children's book illustrations for an author she loathes, but pays well, advertising pieces for patent medicines and jazz bands, charity dances and union meetings, and the concept designs for a beautifully scandalous nude "Nature Goddess" statue in bronze for a gentleman friend of Aunt Ruby's who dabbles in bronze ("And nudes, given half a chance...") when not dabbling in Law. Emily has also done a bit of photography, but mostly of people, and landscapes, as "Fauna just does not stand still long enough to take a decent picture..."
Emily is a quietly amused young woman, quite charming in a fey, distracted sort of way, but almost impossible to deter from anything that takes her artist's fancy to investigate. Her apparent persona of unthreatening femininity, the carefully cultivated manners and threadbare air of respectability mask a perceptive eye, the earthy vocabulary of a farmers daughter, and a horse trader's haggling skills. She is also frightfully handy with a wood axe, a legacy of freezing winters and keeping a woodstove burning through the night.
- Said "note" consisted of a picture of a butterfly evading a net wielding boar with an uncanny resemblance to neighbour's son.
