Design Notes
Every team needs a good tinkerer and the Brassman fills just that role! The fun part about the Cermak Street Irregulars is that Herbert and Pleasance both have complementary skills for tinkering and the three of these characters could work together on a truly brilliant contraption using their different skills!
I spread out the build points for attributes to get the three attributes she will most need right to the “cliff” – one attribute increase and it is a step increase to 7. I also got her Strength and Toughness to a “cliff” where they can easily be rolled up one rank to Step 6. This means that she looks modest to start, but is well positioned moving forward when her Dexterity, Perception, and Charisma are all Step 7 to support her skills.
Florabella, or Flo for short, has a much more varied and broad based skillset than some of the other characters. I chose to keep her Professional Skill to a 2 to add another skill slot in her choices of starting skills because Brassman actually have fewer Core & Optional skills than other Professions. Craftsman and Mechanic were obvious choices and with her background as I envisioned it, Streetwise was another quick choice. Field Engineering to strip down machinery and equipment she runs across and a bit of Firearms rounded out her starting skillset.
For her Free Skills, her knowledge slots went to Gambling and Sport as a Tomboy of sorts who is on her own in this world. She also has learned how to drive, especially because she keeps tinkering with a clockwork steam powered motorcycle in her shop, and Lip Reading because she has some trouble hearing from all the banging going on when she works.
WIth that 3000 Adventure points after raising enough Core skills to increase his Professional Rank, the first thing I did was put her over the cliff on Toughness to get her to a Step 6 before I added Durability for 100 Adventure Points. I added ranks of Haggle and Avoid Blow as Core and Optional skills respectively, though Melee Weapons was sorely tempting. For Free Skills, She has added Engine Programming from spending too much time talking to Herbert – Engines are like weird clockworks – and Danger Sense!
She is still a Social Class 3, as what she does in the shadows of Hackney isn’t well known, so she has her Chatelaine, her armor, firearm, and multiple work kits. By the time Professional Rank two has rolled around, she has that steam powered motorcycle up and running!
Character Notes
The 1860s and 1870s were not a time for the demure and shy ladies. Sure, those delicate flowers exist up in the atmosphere of the aristocracy, but sometimes the only child is a girl and she doesn’t take to the “ladylike” behavior in the slums of London. One such girl was Florabella Gertrude Barton, or Flo.
A short, some saw dwarven sized, woman with a workshop in Hackney, Flo ended up following in the footsteps of Sarah Guppy, the most famous Brassman of them all. She came at it, however, from the bottom of the barrel and that explains why she is often seen chomping a cigar, gambling on the latest cricket match, and generally being as surly and profane as any of the stevedores that adorn London’s ports. She is known in Hackney for being able to get into the workings of lots of the modern day’s technology – from pocket watches to steam-powered cars – but her tendency to use percussive maintenance can be off putting for the uninitiated.
She doesn’t talk about her past much, but it seems pretty clear she came up on the streets on London as an urchin or an orphan. She knows her ways around the back alleys and ne’er-do-wells that populate the heart of the British Empire but nobody can peg her accent. Truth is, she was an urchin begging on the streets until a big hearted, but naive, man took her in. Flo started to learn clockwork from him, just enough to get him to let his guard down. She stole a sack of tools and some clockwork birds before slipping into the dead of night. She tried to ignore that he was found dead the next day – natural causes the bobbies said. Nobody dug too deeply into the tangled flat he held after he was found suffering the terminal effects of a broken heart.
Since then, she’s tried to make good and has guilt clawing at her; even an urchin has a heart. The Cermak Street Irregulars are the first time she has started to feel a little of that weight lifted. They do some good for people, even when they don’t do it under Her Majesty’s blessings. She and Herbert hit it off and quickly became thick as thieves talking into the hours of the night about things few seem to understand. Pleasance is an odd addition, but her “SCIENCE!” seems to fit right into their experiments. She and Richie share a fondness for the strong drinks of the Americas – sipping whiskey and rum but it’s Reginald that makes her work harder. She found someone to look up to . . . and she doesn’t know what to do next.
Cermak Street Irregulars Overview Here.
Fillable PDF Sheet from FASA Games.
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