I’d thought brass knuckles had more of a history, but a quick google tells me they’re far more modern then I imagined. I’ll make a few adjustments, in particular Hoekstra’s affiliation with the Dusthawks. Also, I’d added the bit about a Sparkboat specifically with the Steelbrow in mind, and so if The Wyrm is onboard, it’ll be a nice built in familiarity between Hoekstra and Sabina.
I’ll have some updates done tomorrow - alas, it’s gotten late in my time zone.
Hello! My friend The Wyrm pointed me in your direction. I’m not sure if you’ve still got any openings but if so I’d love to join. Here’s an initial draft of a character; I thought this band of rogues could use a proper criminal element!
General
Name: Caradoc Bryn Hoekstra Race: Dwarf Age: Fifty Two Appearance:
Hoekstra takes great pride in his appearance and makes a point of being finely dressed, effecting the look of a well off merchant. He keeps his head shorn smooth without any stubble and maintains a tidy umber beard with the use of large bronze beads. It’s in the details that the cracks in his facade begin to show; his trouser cuffs show the dust of Lower Shenul and the stump of one leg speaks of hardship not usually found in the merchant class. Beside his moderately polished shoe is a metal rod in place of the dwarfs left foot, capped by a steel semi circle similar in look to an upturned mushroom. Not the only sign of hardship, Hoekstra prefers to wear soft brown or black gloves altered to hide a few missing digits on each hand, and a rough scar bisects his pale sightless left eye. Always with a mind to focusing others gaze, he has a preference to wearing blues, greens and greys to bring out the colour in his remaining eye.
Personal
The child who would become Caradoc Hoekstra was born in Upper Shenul to a well off mining family with interests in the lower deeps Glimhallow. His story wouldn’t truly start until he was a young boy and a series of minor setbacks snowballed into disaster to the Hoekstra family fortunes, culminating in the death of his father. While the loss was considered a tragic accident, it was the nail in the coffin heralding the final end of the widow Tegwen Hoekstra’s life of comfort. By the time Caradoc was in his adolescence, he and his mothers downward spiral had ended them in the Grey District with the young dwarf doing his best to get by and look after his mother.
Having little advantage other then strength and will, Caradoc fought and scrapped and stole as well as any of the poor sods in Lower Shenul. Running with one gang or another was inevitable, and it was on those pale dusty streets and alleys that the young dwarf made his first connections. The trick was getting involved, but not too involved. Living rough a man gains scars, and Caradoc gained his fair share until his face fit that of the most hardened street thug.
Feeling his star was on the rise, young Hoekstra became bold and stretched his means too far. When those he owed came to collect, they found neither hand entirely full and not worth chopping off, so decided to be creative. They pulverising the mans left foot with hammers so thoroughly that a chirurgeon could do nothing but amputate.
After a long recovery, Caradoc walked the dark streets of Lower Shenul again. He’d long been ambitious, but now he had to use new means to make his way and found he was actually quite good at acting as a middle man - a neutral party that could broker deals, facilitate the fencing of goods and launder stone through otherwise legitimate businesses. No longer Creep-Eyed Caradoc, the businessman known as Hoekstra had made his way back to Upper Shenul, clunking conspicuously as he walks. Now, his misshapen fingers were in many pockets and his one eye was on many prizes.
“I want to be so high and mighty that the little people can’t even see who’s spitting on them.”
Prime Motive: Climbing the Ladder; Hoekstra wants to be Better Than, and strives ambitiously to increase his station and prove he’s not just another undertown rat. Accessory Motive(s): To get where he wants to be, wealth and prestige are both tools and byproducts of Caradoc’s ambitions. Internal Conflict: Hoekstra longs for legitimate success, but his felonious origins are hard to shake. The criminal methods can have bigger and quicker payoffs, but working in that world often closes as many doors as it opens and despite his better judgement, Caradoc often cant help but take those risks.
Vocational
Occupation: ‘Legitimate’ Businessman. Hoekstra has been everything from a fence to a launderer and owns shares in several legal and illegal businesses; even a Spark Boat. Talents:
Negotiator - Following the loss of a foot and thus a mans reputation as a fighter, one must find alternative ways to get by. For Hoekstra, this meant using charisma and guile.
Connections - If there’s somebody Caradoc Hoekstra doesn’t know, he probably knows somebody who does - even if they’d rather not admit their relation to him in certain circles.
Pugilist - Hoekstra is a member of a gentleman’s boxing club, participating bi-weekly to keep his skills up. His footwork isn’t the cleanest, but he hits like a smiths hammer.
Flaws:
Mobility - Even with a quality prosthetic and much effort to adjust, two feet just work better then one.
Reputation - A person can’t fully escape their past, as it’s a part of them. Everyone who knows Caradoc Hoekstra knows he’s still a little shady and probably always will be.
Hubris - Though always seeming confident, Hoekstra manages not to come off as arrogant in his dealings. In his own mind, however, he’s always the smartest in the room.
Luxury - The balance between frugality and the love of finer things is a constant struggle, both for his own enjoyment and to be seen enjoying them.
Equipment: -A pair of worn and well used brass knuckles, each with a short spring loaded blade that points downward when the catch is released. -‘Ducks Foot’ Spark Pistol, though kept in his office desk. It wouldn’t do to walk around with such a threatening weapon. -Steel capped prosthetic foot. -Specticals for reading, kept in a case in his jacket. -Fine clothes that give the appearance of wealth and success, but would not pass muster in the upper districts of the city.
Supplemental
Secrets: Caradoc’s middle name is Bryn, which means ‘fair’ or ‘fine’ in the Dwarven tongue. His mother calls him Brynbachgen, or her ‘beautiful boy.’ Caradoc dotes on his ageing mother Tegwen and fears she could either come to harm or be used as leverage against him. Quirks: Somehow being both proud and irreverent of his Dwarven heritage, Caradoc makes a point of going by his true family name: Hoekstra. Most Dwarves of Glimhallow carry on the tradition of translating their names into the human tongue, being known as Bloodaxe, Ironbeard, Strong-in-the-Arm and such. Nobody has ever learned why he prefers it this way. When Hoekstra negotiates, he has a habit of turning his head in such a way that his white sightless eye peers at the other party. He enjoys their unease.
The Beirhaus was ready for a busy Friday and the staff was grateful for the rush. Their job was good when their boss was happy and nothing cheered him up like a busy drinking hall. Delicious scents wafted enthusiastically from the kitchen, inspiring more food orders. Business was good, but for once Georg’s mood didn’t rise to match. He wasn’t foul by any means, but those who knew him knew something was wrong. At the taps he was smiles and quips in French and German, but in the kitchen he had his head down and didn’t speak to the staff in his usual encouraging way. When he went down to the cellar to bring up new casks, Veronique popped in after him.
“You don’t seem yourself, Georg,” she said from the second step to the bottom. “Is everything all right? Did you get bad news from your cousin?”
The older man looked up at her from the kegs he was shifting. He had hired Veronique because she could speak unaccented German, and also fit the ‘official’ standard of beauty for so many of his German customers. She was beautiful but approachable, with a mousey nose and round face framed by appropriately long sandy blonde hair. Unlike so many of the waifish French women in Vichy, she was fit and more strongly built. If Georg was to be honest with himself, which he wasn’t when it came to women, Veronique reminded him of a younger version of his wife, who in turn reminded him of the farm girls he’d known in Westphalia as a youth.
“There are a number of new faces tonight,” he said to dodge the question. “Are there any... strange customers tonight?”
Veronique responded in the negative at first, then described an Italian woman speaking with some young men. German’s didn’t have a good ear for Italian, but the French did and the woman didn’t sound like the one described by his cousin. Georg thanked her, managing a smile, then set to bringing a cask up to the taps
“Sergeant Volker, what an unethspected pleasure!” The Tilean said in his usual precipitatious way. Meinhardt couldn’t help but give him a wry smile in turn.
“It appears both of us are fools who don’t know when to get out of the game, Severo,” said the Middenlander with arms spread.
Meinhardt made his mark on the paperwork with the quick efficiency of experience. The excitement of a coming campaign was all ready starting to fill him, though he didn’t really expect any action. It seemed he was never so at ease as when he was camping on cold earth or marching over harsh ground. What does that say about me? wondered Meinhardt inwardly, before pushing the thought away. He’d spend the rest of the evening with an ale in his hand, maybe try to get the Breton lad drunk as a Marienburg sailor, to see how well he could ride hungover in the morning. Then they would put boots to road for the guild and maybe pretend to be heroes for a while. Meinhardt headed for a refill.
Farid Al-Hashim was a tall strongly built man who wore a tall dark green hat to accentuate that height. When the Europeans made jokes about a negro smiling in the dark, it was men like him they were imagining. They had to imagine, for none in Vichy were brave enough to make those jokes anywhere that they could be seen by him. Farid’s size had been useful in Algeria when fighting the other boys for coming near his sisters. After his sisters and father had died in the Second Great War, his mother had taken him to France and his size had been useful fighting there too, this time for himself.
As many problems as this country had, Farid still loved it for what it was, and that it wasn’t Algeria which had taken so much from him. He did not lament the ills of this place, but he was determined to stamp them out. Thus when his mother had finally passed, he had packed what meagre possessions he had and left warm Marseille in the south and come to the capital, where true change might happen. That was seven years ago. Quickly he’d found the Tirailleurs, and in him they had found a fierce resolve and soon enough a leader.
Farid smiled that bright smile, brighter for the darkness lit only by candlelight. The rattle of machinery filled this place as the salvaged printing press groaned to life on the concrete floor, working slowly at first but gaining speed. He’d argued long and hard about the first message to be put out in pamphlets. The older men, the veterans of the war wanted to claim responsibility for all their doings but Farid had been unrelenting. He knew that their way would result only in blame being put on the Tirailleurs and that the French would turn on them. He knew their cause needed the French and that - though they didn’t know it - the French needed the Tirailleurs to light the spark for them.
That cause was simple in the telling, but like most causes was difficult and complicated to achieve. For all the talk of the politicians of independence, Firad knew and deep down Jean Public knew it too: France was still a Client State to Nazi Germany.
Thus, as the press worked through the sheets of paper, and the boys snatched them up to fold into pamphlets, their message was not what the old veterans wanted. Farid Al-Hashim had not relented and in the end they realised that he controlled their printing press and had only included them in the discussion to maintain an air of diplomacy. The message he printed was bold and powerful and above all, Patriotic. He played on the fierce pride of the French people, the people who had started the European Democratic Revolution! The people who had cast off the chains of monarchy! The people who now languished under the yoke of a new tyrant, not a King but a Fuhrer.
Vichy would wake up to his words in the morning, and they would keep printing every night until all of France had read his words.
Meinhardt nodded his approval at the foreigners intent to stay out of others quarrels. It was a wise sentiment for a mercenary, though he suspected Frans the Bretonnian would take offence at being called that. A newcomer to the tavern interrupted their conversation, and as Severo Emigdio introduced himself to the room, Frans rose keenly.
“Excuse moi for zee moment friend,” said the Bretonnian politely and Meinhardt gestured in a ‘by all means’ sort of way.
For his part, there was no hurry. Meinhardt knew that in this business there was never a cap on how many men got hired on and preferred to see who he was working with. It was vanity, of course. The old soldier would have signed on with a cadre of black toothed villains at this point, merely to be gone of this place. He’d nearly given up on the notion of settling down.
As Frans was joined by another young hopeful, Meinhardt sighed at the prospects of his next engagement. It was looking like he’d be spending the next week or two playing nursemaid to a bunch of pups. Ulric preserve us, he thought. At least there was a Dwarf, they were always good in a fight if they weren’t too ornery towards their own companions. The man drained his mug in two big swallows then stood, striding easily over to the Tilean recruiter.
“Severo, you garlic-eating cyclops!” Meinhardt said boldly. “What is it this time? A caravan to Nuln? Guarding some dignitary to a Count? Either way you know I’m in. Same contract as usual, I suspect?”
If ‘old Captain Volker’ was over the hill, then Severo Emigdio was in the gully on the other side. Meinhardt had heard a few stories of the Tileans adventures, and the near-mythic story of how he’d lost his eye. If half those stories were true, he would have been a hell of a man to fight beside back in the day. Coupled with the fact the at he brought reliable, if unexciting, work with reliable pay, Severo was a good man in Meinhardt’s book. Secretly, he hoped Severo knew that and was annoyed by it.
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