GWS:Rebecca Achilles
Created for the Great War Supers game.
Contents
History[edit]
Rebecca's childhood was one of privilege. Her father, Randall Achilles, was a millionaire heir, a race-car driver, world-traveller, trend-setter and adventurer. Her mother, Sibyll Achilles (nee Sibyll Tenebros) was an intenationally acclaimed escape artist, a ravishing beauty with a devastating right hook, and elfishly at home in the rebellious social circles of the flappers of her day.
All of that changed with the collapse of the family fortune. The Achilles family was dangerously overextended when a combination of bad fortune conspired to bring their investments to ruin. Later investigations even implied (without ever outright saying) that Randall was engaged in all manner of shady financial dealings.
The family lost everything.
Randall and Sibyll's car went off a sharp turn on the New Jersey Palisades, and into the water below. Those familiar with Randall's driving skills said that it could only be suicide ... that it was too simple a mistake for him to make by accident.
Rebecca ended up in a rapid series of unhappy foster homes (completely unable to cope with her), and then shortly out on the streets. She worked odd jobs until she found her way to Nate Lockwood's machinist's shop ... from there through a rapid series of promotions on the merit of her ground-breaking (and money-making) inventions for the rapidly expanding Lockwood Industries ... and from there to bare scholarship status at Kensington College, and thence to graduate school.
To be continued ....
Style[edit]
Rebecca believes in the permanence of ideals, and particularly of her beloved Science! (always capitalized, always with an exclamation point, at least in her mind) She does not, however, believe in the permanence of any human institution or effort. She's been an outsider, in one way or another, for so long that she gleefully uses logic and intellect to dismantle the things that other people take for granted and consider important.
Apart from Science!, what Becky mostly believes in is Becky. She believes in a good stiff drink (or twelve), in having a smoke near to hand at all times, in being flirted with by good looking men she has no intention of accomodating, and in a good knock-down drag out fight. She's found that, with the proper effort and appropriately low standards, she can find all of these things in pretty much any port in the world. And she has done, in many of them.
Because she believes in herself, and her own priorities far more than the concerns or fears of the more staid people she collides with, Becky has a strong habit of unintentionally changing people's lives: sometimes she changes them for the better, and sometimes she changes them for the worse, but she very seldom leaves any town she passes through without a memory (or twelve) of her passing. Indeed, watching her in action a person might be driven to wonder whether she worries at all about what the town will look like (or whether it will remain standing) after she's decided to pull up her tent pegs and move on.
Character Writeups[edit]
Rebecca Achilles is written up in several distinct modules. In some scenes Rebecca will just be present, being vaguely scientific or shooting people with her machine pistols. In such a case, all that's needed is her main character. But sometimes her presence in a scene is dominated by certain aspects of her personality. If she's drunk out of her gourd on cut-rate ouzo, however, you don't need her action persona: you need the specialized abilities of her dissipated lifestyle.
Of course, most of the fun is the way that these aspects of her personality tug and conflict with each other. Fortunately, since they're separate characters, anybody can play any of them, for or against the main character. So, in the same scene, TonyLB can be playing Rebecca herself, trying to fight her way through Fascists in the canals of Venice. dunlaing can be playing her Inventions against her, as everything she tries to use turns out to be improperly designed for the task. Meanwile, Sensorium can be playing her Sordid Past ... on either side, really. Maybe the thugs after her are particularly motivated because of what she did to them five years ago. Or maybe she's saved at the last minute because somebody recognizes her and gives her a place to hide.
Main Character[edit]
| Powers | Styles | Attitudes |
| 5 - Mad Science Genius | ||
| 4 - Mad Science Clothing | 4 - (P) Improvise a Gadget | |
| 3 - Machine Pistol | 3 - Reckless Curiosity | 3 - Confident |
| 2 - Meters and Gauges | 2 - Screw the Rules | 2 - Abrasive |
| 1 - Clockwork Tools | 1 - (P) Know weak points of any system | 1 - Shameless |
Supporting Non-Person characters[edit]
| Skills | Styles | Attitudes |
| 5 - Ignore the practical | ||
| 4 - "That can't be right!" | 4 - Determined | |
| 3 - Guess | 3 - "This could be a huge breakthrough!" | 3 - Energetic |
| 2 - Remember | 2 - Examine Sample | 2 - Confused |
| 1 - Doubt | 1 - "Won't know 'till we try!" | 1 - Reckless |
| Skills | Styles | Attitudes |
| 5 - Legendary Exploits | ||
| 4 - Complicate matters | 4 - Favors owed | 4 - |
| 3 - Simplify matters | 3 - Live up to reputation | 3 - Doubting |
| 2 - Connect | 2 - Trouble with Law | 2 - Nostalgic |
| 1 - Remember | 1 - Been here before | 1 - Friendly |
| Skills | Styles | Attitudes |
| 5 - Procrastinate | ||
| 4 - Scoff | 4 - Apathetic | |
| 3 - Hold your liquor | 3 - Problems with authority | 3 - Rebellious |
| 2 - Chain-smoke | 2 - Friends in low places | 2 - Happy |
| 1 - Gather a crowd | 1 - Really bad decision | 1 - Mellow |
| Skills | Styles | Attitudes |
| 5 - Massive Property Damage | ||
| 4 - Overperform | 4 - Unpredictable | |
| 3 - Precision | 3 - Needless elaboration | 3 - Whimsical |
| 2 - Jury-Rig | 2 - Fiddly bits | 2 - Quirky |
| 1 - Underperform | 1 - Exposed workings | 1 - Stubborn |
TonyLB 18:13, 13 November 2005 (PST)
