### Details:

**Name**: Karen *(a plain chosen name for a not-plain automaton)*
**Race**: [[Automatons|Automaton]]
**Age**: Uncertain — long enough in Caford to have become an institution.
**Gender**: Undefined; presents and answers to feminine ("she").
**Core personality**: Warm, unflappable, and quietly shrewd — a host who makes everyone feel looked-after while missing nothing said at her tables.
**Location**: [[Caford]], [[Falduhir]] — [[The Pigskin]].

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### Appearance:

- **Build & Stature:** Solid and settled, built for standing behind a bar for years without tiring; unhurried in every movement.
- **Plating:** Worn to a soft, hand-polished sheen at the edges — the patina of long, comfortable use rather than neglect.
- **Eyes:** Steady, attentive lenses that warm when she's decided she likes you.
- **Apparel:** A publican's apron and a few small, sentimental trinkets kept about her frame — gifts, most of them.
- **Distinguishing Features:** Keeps the house's one **reserved table** as if it were a throne; there is almost always a cluster of trusted hands within a nod of her.

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### Voice & Speech:

- **Tone & Pitch:** Even, unhurried, hospitable — the voice of someone who has calmed a hundred arguments before they started.
- **Mannerisms:** Calls patrons by warm, generic endearments; asks after you before she asks anything of you; deflects hard questions with another round.

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### Motivations & Goals:

- **Primary motivation:** Keep the Pigskin a **safe door** for Caford's automatons and an honest table in a hard city — and keep the favor-ledger balanced.
- **Fears / Dangers:** The city's anti-automaton temper turning on her house; being forced to *pick a side* and lose her neutral ground.
- **Personal Quests or Secrets:** None dark — her leverage is simply that she knows nearly everyone worth knowing among Caford's automatons, and remembers every favor owed in both directions.

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### Background:

- **Origin:** A [[Automatons|construct]] who found her footing in [[Caford]] and built something rarer than a tavern — a *welcome*.
- **History:** Over years the Pigskin became the automaton community's hiring-hall and quiet exchange, with Karen as its keeper. She vouched the party in only after confirming they were the ones who'd aided [[Oils - The Pigskin|Oils]]'s escape from the [[House of Suits Casino|House of Suits]].
- **Current Occupation:** Host, fixer, and favor-broker of [[The Pigskin]].

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### Associations:

- **Allegiances & Factions:** None openly — pointedly **neutral**. Her loyalty is to her house and her people.
- **Allies & Friends:** [[Oils - The Pigskin|Oils]] (lodger, now under her wing); her subordinates on the floor; the party, provisionally.
- **Rivals & Enemies:** Anyone who threatens the Pigskin's welcome — Reclamation-Site zealotry, or a faction trying to turn her tables into a front.
- **Contacts & Networks:** Deep roots in Caford's automaton community; can quietly *find* a person, a berth, or an answer within the city.

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### Notes & Flavor

- The reserved table is her office; sit only when invited.
- Helps for goodwill, not gold — and remembers exactly what she's owed.
- "First a drink. Then your trouble." *(Working catchphrase — swap freely.)*