The American Revolution never happened, and North America belongs to the British. It is in this penal colony of New Britain that our story unfolds.

As a penal colony, roughly three-quarters of the population is there to atone for their crimes, many falsely accused. The other twenty-five percent are there to keep the colony alive through governance and trade as farmers, inventors, craftsmen, and the like. For the most part, those not charged with guarding and policing the inland prisons stay to the coasts.

Recently, there was an escape, the first successful attempt at such. The fugitives were discovered by a farmer, severely injured and heavily armed. For you see, the prisoners have been used by a locally prominent and wealthy inventor, one Neil Pratchet, as free labor for weapons much like the ones they stole and some far more powerful. Pratchet plans to bring the colony under his control and start a war if he must, for all who stand in his way must fall.

The port of Jamestown remains the last stronghold of resistance to his dictatorship. The citizens have formed a militia in the hopes of standing firm until reinforcements arrive from England.

Our tale begins on a windy summer night around 1850 as the tacticians sit down to meet…


Name:
Age:
Appearance:
Occupation/skills:
Brief history:

So, is this still going to be clockpunk, or are we going with straight up steampunk now?

The 1800s are a little late for clockpunk.

I'm new to that whole Steampunk-Clockpunk stuff. When I wrote I would like to RP, I thought the poll thread would last a few weeks longer.

So right now I'm still thinking about what kind of character I want, yet I'm missing information on those genres.

Can I get descriptions, samples, links, whatever?

Or should I just go spend some days in Wikipedia and come back?

Not sure on Clockpunk, but here's a picture that's a fair embodient of Steampunk:





(but then, the exact details of steampunk can differ per person....)

Can I just be a painter-beatnik with a clockwork-propelled car who is also the grandson of a man guilty of being an opium dealer?

Just asking if that fits or if I need to study more.

That'd really be up Lady.

Germ - I decided to just ignore everything I said and screw clockpunk. I wanted to get it written up, and I knew a bit more about steam offhand.

I figure we can do steampunk with some clockpunk elements, just clockstuffs will be kinda outdated.

Kath - sure.

Weehee! Time to get it deeper to avoid making a DD grade character.

Just a detail... what's the age of the colony? A century or two?

Oh, here's good sites to make up meaningful names:
http://www.behindthename.com/
http://surnames.behindthename.com/

Lalala...

Yeah, I'm gonna go along partially with our history and say the colony was founded the same time as the real Jamestown, so about 225 years, give or take. And those sites are my best friends.

I'm lazy so no promises but I should have a character written up soon.

Fine, I'll start.


Name: He does not know his true name, so he uses the alias "John Q."

Age: Appears to be in his late 30's/early 40's.

Appearance: Dark blond hair in a crew cut, blue eyes, and a heavy, chiseled face. John always wears baggy, concealing outfits that hide his body. The reason for this is that he is partially mechanized. Large portions of his body have been replaced with machinery, and when disrobed he has a somewhat inhuman, "mechanized Frankenstein" appearance.

Occupation/skills: New recruit in the Jamestown militia. Until recently he employed himself as a hustler/con man, misrepresenting himself and making unbalanced wagers with drunk men in bars.

Brief history: John claims to have amnesia, and in truth, he cannot remember parts of his life spanning several years. He was a boyhood friend to one Terry Gaeman, a mechanist and inventor who quickly became rivals with Neil Pratchet before the latter man amassed his current wealth and power. In those days Terry and John were fascinated by transhumanism, the idea that man could enhance himself with technology. As a study in man/machinery unification, John often offered himself as a test subject for Terry to develop their sought-after body modification.

As such, John considers himself better than most humans and unfairly discriminated against due to his perceived "superiority."

Name: Dwayne Claudius Sterling

Age: Around 30, hell if he even knows.

Appearance:
Height: 5 feet 9 inches.
Weight: 130 lbs, more or less depending on the money.
Hair: Dark brown, looks dark orange when exposed to warm light. Unkept and roughly cut at the shoulders.
Eyes: Sunglassy
Clothes: Anything cheap, simple and comfortable, with zippers. He usually wears a light long-sleeved pale blouse, loose pants held with a dark leather belt and tall brown leather boots with zips on the front instead of laces and metal caps inside the leather for his toes' safety. He also wears two wristwatches, which weren't cranked and both showed 11:49 for years. He hates buttons.

Occupation/skills: Beatnik and painter, sort of a scavenger. He drives around to find food, money, abandoned yet usable pieces of crap and inspiration. He only needs to crank up his rusty Cara once each two hours, so fuel is not a problem. He has of course some basic enginering skills to repair his old faithful car when stuck in the middle of nowhere after running over two cats, a deer, three skunks and a tree... or after any similar situations.

Brief history: Grandson of an opium dealer, who still claimed of being innocent until his death, and son of a blazed and dreamless engineer. Seeing as his oldest son was without ambition, immature and did not have any real talents, he gave Dwayne an old unclaimed Cara car, which was rusting in a corner of the workshop for years, and told him to get a life. For years he has been driving all over the roads and sometimes inbetween, seeking that fabled "life". Dwayne keeps all his materials and scraps in the trunk of the car and more fragile items on his backseat.

However, one item is always in the passenger seat beside him, a broken doll he called Wilma. In the rare times Dwayne picked someone up on the side of the road, the new passenger had to settle on the backseat after pushing off some crap, for Wilma would never be moved. Anyone insisting on taking the blonde doll's place would be left on the side of the road, which was the most common outcome whenever he met a hitchhiker. Either the doll contains a dark secret that only Dwayne knows... or he's just crazy and in serious need of a friend to talk to.

He had an uneventful life of travelling across the territory, never paying much attention to his surroundings, squishing countless critters on his path.

Might it change the day he encounters something he can't drive over?...


Dwayne:

Spoiler:

Wilma (and Dwayne's custom glasses):

Spoiler:

_________________

Brought to life by the collective insanity of the Deeganites.

Name: Dayton Massachusetts
Age: 19
Appearance:Tall and thin, with short brown hair, tanned skin, and brown eyes. usually wears a red shirt, and a long brown coat. Carries several lengths of chain.
Occupation/skills: Pickpocket, thief, and general troublemaker.
Brief history: Dayton was raised by his uncle in a bad part of town, after being abandoned by his parents at a young age. Growing up, he was exposed to much of the seedy underbelly this world has to offer. Dayton became obsessed with these bad guys, especially stories of their escapes and close calls. Dayton soon grew into a renown pickpocket, which has been his primary source of income for years (along with card games, theft, blackmail, etc.) He also quickly learned how to fight, how to run, how to avoid cops, and how to blend into a crowd, all skills necessary for survival in his career. Despite his skills and best efforts, however, Dayton has made quite a few high profile enemies, and thus lives drifting from place to place in order to avoid detection, Dayton never knows where he will sleep tomorrow, nor does he care, so long as he can plan for his next score.

Name: Felix Ward
Age: 25
Appearance: average height, reddish hair, brown eyes. Typically wears a brown suit
Occupation/skills: doctor
Brief history: Born and raised in London, Felix grew up in a typical working class household, the oldest of four boys. He began his lessons in medicine under his uncle at the age of fifteen and started his actual schooling at seventeen, getting his degree at twenty-one. Somewhat selfishly left England at 23 after a fun night opened up a lifetime of new responsibility. Upon arriving, he opened a practice in Jamestown. He isn’t much good at fighting but can last in a bar brawl if needed.

Name: Unsure of what his parents called him, he goes by the name Joshua.

Age: Early 30s.

Appearance: He has short dark brown hair, brown eyes a smaller frame that is relatively built for his size. He's about 160cm tall. He wears long pants, mainly to hide the fact that his left leg from the knee downwards is mechanical. He often keeps a knife, a needle and some string as well as some bandages in a compartment in his 'calf muscle'. He wears black leather boots and usually wears a plain white shirt underneath a brown jacket with arm length sleeves. He has a bit of a rugged face and always has a decent amount of stubble on his face only ever clean shaving his moustache. He has several scars on his chest from fights that he has gotten into over the years.

Occupation/skills: Mechanic of some skill. Fairly decent in a fight and at first aid.

Brief history: Joshua was an orphan, raised on the streets by other orphans until a day came when he was about 6 where the police, tipped off by a neighbor, raided their hideout and took most of them into custody. Joshua managed to get away but was forced to wander the streets alone. One night, a wild dog that had escaped from the pound found Joshua while he was sleeping and attacked him, going for his left leg first. A passerby heard Joshua's screams and chased off the dog. This passerby happened to be a doctor turned mechanic who after hearing Joshua's story decided to take him in and raise him as his son. He built Joshua a mechanical leg to replace the one the dog had destroyed. Joshua lived with the mechanic learning everything the old man had to teach him until when he was about 15 and the old mehcanic was killed in a violent bank robbery. From that day forward Joshua took up the life of a vagrant. Having never gone to school he lacks a proper education however he has some skill in reading, enough to read the average newspaper. He doesn't fit in well with most people and so he has continued wondering about from place to place never really settling down. This has lead him to the penal colony of America where he hopes he will fit in better and can finally find some place to settle down and run a small business.

Edit - Originally he was just going to be mechanic but I found it hard to believe that a mechanic could save his life if a dog had ripped up his leg so I made the old man a former doctor. Then I decided that he probably would have taught Joshua some very basic medical skill as well.