3.2 KiB
3.2 KiB
Details:
Name: Karen (a plain chosen name for a not-plain automaton) Race: Automatons 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.
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.
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.
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.
Background:
- Origin: A Automatons 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's escape from the House of Suits Casino.
- Current Occupation: Host, fixer, and favor-broker of The Pigskin.
Associations:
- Allegiances & Factions: None openly — pointedly neutral. Her loyalty is to her house and her people.
- Allies & Friends: Oils - The Pigskin (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.
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.)