Name: “Arnault Mongouse” (real name Saville, Sebastien Ulysse)

Age: 52

Gender: Male

Job: Agent of the Second Bureau, Commander of La Charlatane

Country of Origin: France

Appearance: Close-cropped ashen hair and substantial moustache frame a worn and pockmarked face the colour of a pale ale, with two jewels of ivory-bound sapphire set within. Beneath Saville’s bright blue dress uniform, he is bulky and broad; coupled with his 190-cm height, he strikes an imposing figure.

Personality: Stark, serious, to-the-point. It is hard to make no-nonsense Saville laugh, and even harder to find him a doorway through which he does not have to duck (this is Europe). Quick to focus intently on the parameters and requirements of a mission and quicker to a cigarette. Knack for improvisation, and sometimes does things that are immediately incomprehensible (without offering explanation) that pan out to have become necessary following the appearance of problems he has seemingly predicted beforehand.

History: Sebastien was born in Boston in 1851 to a pair of textile merchants - French nationals who had begun exporting their wares to America. He received part of his education there, before he and his parents steamed back to Bordeaux in 1860. A decade later, Sebastien was conscripted into the French army at the age of 19 upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. He was assigned to Blue Division of the Troupes de Marine, serving as a signals/reconnaissance specialist. One of his most notable battles was the Battle of Bazeilles, where he and several of his compatriots relayed crucial information on the movements of Bavarian troops, allowing Marsouins snipers to lay an ambush. He received several commendations after the conclusion of the war, including promotion to Adjutant-Chef (Chief Warrant Officer) before enrolling in officer school prior to returning to duty for the Sino-French war. French military intelligence maneuvered the Marines into lending them Lieutenant Saville for a special assignment - planting him within Chinese foreign advisers, where he would pose as an American due to his fluency in English and American upbringing. At their naval headquarters, he would act to sabotage Chinese naval operations (including the elimination of key crew and personnel) as well as feed information back to his superiors on the movements of Chinese forces. He returned home when the war concluded in 1885, without having once come under suspicion by the Chinese. He was promoted to Capitaine within five minutes of stepping back onto French soil. Shortly afterwards, Cne. Saville was approached by the Deuxième Bureau, France’s burgeoning intelligence agency, and accepted an offer to join their ranks. There, Saville (under several aliases) travelled the globe in a multitude of clandestine missions of espionage, sabotage, and even assassination. He was assigned to infiltrate the Belgian Antarctic expedition aboard the RV Belgica, but his mission ended prematurely before he could depart by the landing of several strange vessels within the British mainland…

Fast forward five years, and now-Major Saville would be tasked with venturing to Boulogne-sur-Mer Forward Air Assault Centre (AABM). There, after dispatching one Capitaine Arnault Mongouse, and assuming both his identity and command, “Cne. Mongouse” was to report on the goings-on at the front, passing along any information about the Martians’ advanced technology to his superiors.


Equipment: A portable radio kit, provisions, standard field notebook, a separate field notebook secured closed by a locking clasp, binoculars, lighter, cigarettes, cocaine gum. Weapons include a Lebel 1886 carbine (with 4.3x magnification scope), and the Modèle 1892 revolver.

Fighting Machine: “La Charlatane”

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Designation:

TMM-04 “La Charlatane”

Country of Origin: France

Crew: 19 (1 main battery gunner and 1 loader, 2 secondary battery gunners and 2 loaders, 1 forward machine gunner and 1 loader, 3 tertiary battery gunners and 3 loaders, 2 engineers, 1 driver, 2 command officers)

Weapons:

TOP BARBETTE (Main battery)

• Canon de 274 modèle 1887/1893 (274mm naval gun) [Primary armament]
• QF 1-pounder "pom-pom" (37mm autocannon) [Mounted, remote-operated]

CABIN, FIXED CENTERLINE

• Canon Hotchkiss à tir rapide de 47mm (47mm gun) x2 [Secondary armament]
• 1895 Maxim gun (.303 British machine gun)

SIDE & REAR TURRETS

• Puteaux SA 18 (37mm breech-loading cannon) x3 [Tertiary armament]
• Mle 1900-C Hotchkiss (8mm Lebel machine gun) x3 [Coaxial]

Description & Traits:

Gargantuan, imposing, and one of the most enormous machines that humanity has ever built, the TMM series of colossi are sometimes referred to as (at least, in some circles) land-dreadnoughts. Nearly 17 meters tall and twice as broad, four bulky magneto-mechanical legs clad entirely in armored slabs support a sturdy steel girdle, upon which sits the boxy main compartment. Though this mounting permits the main body rotation independent of the legs, it is further topped by a squat, roughly-cylindrical turret capable of its own independent rotation. A veritable fortress on legs, the TMM colossi is the result of collaboration between French and English engineers, the latter of whom having fled across the Channel following the extraterrestrial occupation of their homeland. Relying heavily on resources supplied the salvage of destroyed and disabled naval vessels, only six of these machines have ever been built.

Overwhelming firepower and attrition are central to the doctrines TMM-series colossi represent. What they lack in speed, manoeuvrability and utility that smaller fighting machines are privy to, they make up for by delivering unprecedented destruction through unrelenting, precision artillery. The thick iron plating on the main body protects a large crew, necessary to the smooth operation of the machine. Two hatches on the back of the main compartment (flanking the rear gunner) provide access to the interior. These hatches can be reached by a series of ladders mounted on the legs and chassis of the TMM-04 when it is upright, but the walker can also “sit” through the use of a series of pistons extending from the underside of the main girdle after having "crouched" down, providing easier access for mounting and dismounting.

The massive naval gun contained within the top barbette (the main turret) is the TMM's primary armament. The wide, four-legged base of the colossi is necessary for stability, but doubly so when firing this weapon, lest the machine fall over. Atop the barbette is a smaller auto-firing cannon, which can be loaded with explosive or chemical shells, and can move independently (albeit in a limited range of motion) of the turret, which itself can move independently of the main body, which itself can move independently of the legs. Thus, this autocannon is operated by the commander and his lieutenant, who are always guaranteed to have a steady supply of cigarettes and cocaine gum. In the main body of the fighting machine, two fixed secondary guns protrude forward out of the cabin, with a belt-fed Maxim antipersonnel machine gun nestled between them. Sponsons extend outward from the other three sides (port, starboard, and aft) of the somewhat-rectangular cabin, providing a full 180-degree angle of rotation for the small, turreted cannons and coaxial Hotchkiss machine guns contained within each.

The crew compartment is cramped and hot. There is barely any area to move around, with most open space within occupied by ammunition and fuel. Gunners rely on narrow slits in the armor and periscopes to aim their weapons, as well as their commander's ability to spot and call out targets. The commander, nestled within the top turret amongst a plethora of periscopes and signalling equipment, must be constantly aware of his surroundings, provide targets and accurate firing solutions to his gunners, and communicate effectively with the engineers and driver. As a result, only the best of France’s mechanized combat division are allowed to operate the TMM colossi. Each crew member has, at the very least, rudimentary training as an engineer or mechanic should the walker be damaged, but in case of critical system failure, each carries a Lebel rifle and is expected to continue their mission on foot.

Regarding La Charlatane itself, most of TMM-04 is painted a matte olive green, with some of the original iron frame remaining bare. Alphanumeric markings are stencilled in white, particularly on the cabin. The two most prominent markings are “TMM-04” on one side of the cabin, with “La Charlatane” on the other.

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Name: Liam Haggerty

Age: 20

Gender: Male

Job: Chief Gunnery Operator

Country of Origin: England

Appearance: Wiry, brisk, and brimming with furious purpose. Liam is a young and frankly small man, standing only 170 cm or so even in ramrod naval posture, and he carries little in the way of extraneous bulk on his person, having neither need nor wish of living lavishly at altitude. Whatever blubber a fuller diet might have given him to insulate his frame from the outside world is burned away by the heat of constant motion on the gun decks of the mighty airship, as he loads, aims, and fires heavy comets of lead unto his hated foe a man possessed. In so doing, he often looks more the part of a engine worker than a uniformed soldier, topcoat stripped to hang around the waist as both his pale skin and white undershirts are constantly stained black by gunpowder. It too carries in the short head of mahogany hair he's topped with, never quite getting the odor out free from his follicles or pores. His eyes are a dark, stormy gray, as though cast from the same iron as his holy airship's namesake— and the vessel that saved his life, five years ago.

Personality: A stern, focused gunner, Operator Haggerty is a brash, outspoken individual on the floors of the cannonade decks, a man singularly focused: If there are Martians to rain down God's Judgement upon, he will see to it that they are tried. He is fiery in his passion for the craft of artillery, stating simply that "It's no coincidence that the Thunderchild—the First One— was the best weapon we had against those damned squids! The shells put them down! I was there!" when questioned. His anger at the demons from Mars, as a young man who survived the initial invasion of the British Isles, runs deep enough to touch his core. He was a boy who lost family, lost friends, lost his home, lost his nation— and watched many of them burn, screaming, beneath the devilish rays of heat. He hates none of his fellow men and women, and would call himself a friend to all mankind, regardless of their heritage— and on the other side of that coin, would gladly do whatever necessary to wipe the Martians that took his world away off the face of the planet— and theirs, too.

In the rare moments that he allows himself to be away from the mighty guns (and the thankfully less rare moments where he's forced away by outranking officers), he retreats into a quiet shell, keeping his words tight and controlled and close to his chest. At times, one wonders if part of him might realize that he was twisted irreparably from the joyous young man that lived in Hull up to the Summer of 1897, and that he needs to keep himself tightly wound and locked in place when he has no demons there to Hate so fervently. In these cases, socialization seems almost an unfamiliar chore, if not necessarily unwelcome. A few beers (or if you manage to steer a conversation somewhere he knows how to get going within) can sometimes change this— bringing out a ghost of the boy who died on the steamer's deck, in time with the valiant heart of the Ironclad.

History: A coastal lad hailing from the port town of Hull, Liam's origins are by necessity humble, the Haggerty family settling on the lower end of the newly birthed middle class post-Industrialization. His father was a hardy steel mill worker who moonlit as a fisherman and enjoyed jellied eels and meat pies with his daily pint at the local pub. His mother kept the house and routinely enlisted her boys— Liam and his older brother James— with the more labor-intensive work in the years of his adolescence, slotting cleaning and repair between their studies and ventures into the forests a few miles north. It was by all accounts a simple life— one that the Martians dispassionately tore from him at the age of 15, mere months after his brother had enlisted in the Army. The demons, in their impossible and deadly engines of destruction, cut a swath through the Isles mercilessly, with no warning to speak of. It was all he could do to take his ailing mother, feverish at the time, and hurry her through the streets of Hull onto the nearest ship they could— a small steamer, filled to the brim with similar refugees, that barely puffed out of port as the three-legged monsters loomed high above what was once his home. His father is to this day unaccounted for, and he presumes him dead, likely within the steel mill he was employed by.

The steamer limped southward, only making one daring stop— skirting along the Essex coast for supplies and fuel, its load unfortunately lighter. Those injured in the attacks could often not be adequately treated, and were grimly tossed overboard after they passed by the crew and whatever family could muster the courage. It was on this fateful stop that young Liam saw the shadows of those demons again. This time, his boat wasn't so lucky— small, slow, and surrounded by a trio of the striders, they were to be easy pickings.

And then, one of them fell to a crack of thunder, as a furious horn sounded from an ironclad bravely surging into the fray. He watched, awestruck, captivated, as the roaring ship bore down at full steam, heedless of the heat rays or warbling cries of the war machines. Their only answer came in the form of her mighty guns, her bellowing engine, the scream of metal tearing into metal, and the warrior calls of the men aboard as she rammed the second, defiant to the last as the final walker's heat ray melted her valiant heart. It was here that the shellshocked boy's soul changed forever, casting all his hope, all his hate, and all his sorrow into the single chant the refugees aboard the little steamer repeated, slinking away as the voice of legion.

"Come on, Thunder Child!"

As the ship made port in France, the boy's heart was set upon the one thing he saw that had made those demons bleed.

Five years later, his naval career has lead him aboard a new child of the storm, one that sits in the same leaden skies its sacred namesake fought beneath, each an indomitable testament to human will, in the face of a truly existential threat.

Equipment: A Webley Model 1887 revolver sidearm, opposed by a long, front-curved knife that hangs from his opposite hip to round out his personal protection should things ever become that disastrous— a kukri obtained from a Gurkha, reportedly as some form of trade bargained at some point prior to his stationing aboard the airship. That this is nonstandard seems to be overlooked, given his proficiency with the mapbook, wind charts, protractor, rangefinder, and texts on various artillerist's concerns such as the Coriolis effect, geometry, and gun maintenance. Always seems to have a stout on hand, especially when working.

Fighting Machine: HMS Thunderchild. Knows her inside and out, knows the Gun Decks every which way one can short of "biblically".