Character: Maria
Character Sheet (Maria)
Combat Value: 7
You are Maria Antonia Fantasia Philomel, legendary partner of the Heterodyne Boys! With your firey red hair and freedom-loving ways, you help people in need everywhere.Well, no. But you really like the name "Maria" -- it's so much more exotic than Mary, isn't it? "Mary Thurmstein" doesn't have any ring to it at all: it's the name of an ordinary girl with mousey hair and annoying bratty brothers and sisters. So for now, you're going by "Maria".
Mary Thurmstein was born in the nearby town of Feuerholt, where she has ordinary parents and three really annoying siblings, two kid brothers and one kid sister. She is seventeen years old, and is probably destined to marry some stupid baker's son or something like that. She's a really good storyteller, even if the kids don't appreciate the way that she enhances the stories to make them more interesting.
All your life, you've been frustrated by your sheer ordinariness. Deep down, you've always known that you were meant for more. Everyone should get at least one good adventure in their life, right? That's why, when you heard that the Circus was near Feuerholt, you know that this was the opportunity you had to take. You lined up babysitters for the kids for a week or two, so Mom doesn't get too snowed under dealing with them immediately, wrote a note explaining to your parents why you had to do this (really, it was a little too apologetic, but it's too late now), and ran off to join the Circus.
"Master Payne's Circus of Adventure" -- what a great name! Okay, it's not like going out adventuring with the Heterodyne Boys, but the realistic part of you knows that they haven't been heard from in, like, twenty years, so you aren't going to be able to simply look them up and travel with them. Maybe you'll go find them someday, and bring them back and help save everyone from the Baron. But first, you need to learn what life is like outside Feuerholt.
So you came to the Circus about a week ago. They were kind of reluctant to take you in, which kind of surprised you. Aren't Circuses made up entirely of people who have run away from hom? You put that to them, and they admitted that that was largely true, but that it was more complicated than that -- that most of them had to leave home for one reason or another. They pointed to Embi as an example: he made this really cool vow to see the entire world before he dies. Of course, he also says that he's 130 years old, so you kind of take him with a grain of salt. Still, he's different from anyone you've ever seen, so who knows?
You've spent most of the past week helping out as much as you can, particularly helping Countess Marie, who is apparently some sort of noblewoman who ran away from home. (Why would a noble run away? It seems like so much cooler a life than yours is. You need to ask her sometime.) Marie is really clever with potions and stuff. It's been -- well, a lot less different than you thought it would. Instead of spending your time cooking and cleaning at home, you're spending most of your time cooking and cleaning here. They've given you the cabin of one of the girls who is missing, named "Pix"; you're awfully aware that you're living in someone else's place, so you're trying to be as neat and clean as you can be.
It turns out that the Circus is in town because of the Castle. You should have expected that -- Feuerholt is a pretty modest town, and traveling shows don't come to it all that much. (Especially cool Heterodyne shows like this one: the Circus specializes in putting on the stories of the Heterodyne Boys as plays, which is so cool!) But it has always gotten a small trade in scientists and the like, who want to know about the Castle of Amagog.
The story goes like this: a couple hundred years ago, there was a Spark named Amagog, who was really, really powerful. He spent a few years working for the Storm King (who was kind of like the Baron back in those days), but got fed up with it and moved out here, which was an smaller village at the time. He built a big Castle, as Sparks do, and lived quietly and secretly for several years. Unlike most Sparks, he didn't build a lot of rampaging Constructs or Clanks, so people mostly dealt with him.
Slowly, though, things started to change. He kidnapped a local girl, and took her up into the Castle -- some of the rumors said that he used her for horrible experiments, but most people think he just forced her to marry him. Strange noises and lights were seen at night, and people started to worry.
Then there was the creature. When Amagog came into town for supplies, he mentioned a few times that he was building the "Perfect Construct". Well, that worried people to begin with: most Constructs are pretty nasty creatures. But the reality was even worse. Nobody agrees exactly what it looked like, but everyone agreed that it was pretty horrible -- a huge thing, with lots of eyes and teeth and limbs and stuff like that. So relations between the town and the Castle got pretty bad.
After a few years, the townspeople finally had enough. In the way that they always did a couple hundred years ago, they picked up pitchforks and torches and stuff like that. (It was kind of primitive, but that's how they did things back then.) Usually, that results in a lot of squashed and eaten villagers, but Amagog was different. Instead of killing everybody, he simply -- went away. As they were marching up to the Castle, they watched as it just kind of shimmered and vanished. They poked around, and everything was just gone, as if it had never existed. So they all declared victory, got really drunk, and went back to being ordinary and boring.
Still, despite there not being anything there, the site of the Castle still draws the occasional tourist. There are the academics who are trying to learn more about who Amagog was and what he did -- about five years ago, when you were maybe 12, you got a silver piece (a lot of money at that age) for touring some lab-coat scientist around the grounds. And there are the rich but wierd nobles and merchants who like to sniff around the remains of dead Sparks: they only come occasionally, but they tend to bring enough retinue (and buy enough stupid fake "relics") to provide a little boost to the town.
The thing is, though, the Castle came back. About a month ago, it just reappeared -- the people who were looking that way say that the air shimmered just like in the old stories, and there it was again. Everyone got scared, of course, but there was no return of the strange lights or monsters or anything, so it was mostly a curiosity.
Word got around fast, though -- within a week, adventurers were starting to show up. Old Spark Castles are every adventurer's dream: it might be full of treasure or devices or stuff like that, for the first person to get inside and take control of it. So they started throwing themselves into the Castle's gullet, and getting swallowed up. No one knows what happened to them all, but none of them were heard from again, so everyone figures that the Castle still has all those old Sparky deathtraps and things in it. It's making the people of Feuerholt kind of uneasy, since no one knows when someone is going to let loose a monster that might go rampaging through the town. But so far, everyone seems to be okay except the ones who are going inside.
Anyway, the Circus has big problems, which is why they came here. The story is that they were traveling about a month ago, when they wandered through Middleburg. That's a pretty nasty big town a couple days' ride from here. Your folks talk about it sometimes -- they have to go there once every few years for fancy supplies, but they don't like it. They say it was a pretty nice place 20 years ago, but then this real jerk named Markheim came to power. He's a petty noble who likes to arrest people for silly reasons, and then hold them for ransom unless their families pay big fines. Which is exactly what happened to the Circus: more than half their people got arrested, and are being held unless the Circus can pay a lot of money. He's saying that he's going to start executing people soon if they don't pay him.
So they came here, to see if they could get something out of the Castle. You hear that Embi actually got inside, but haven't had a chance yet to him about it. (You hear that he went in with a bunch of adventurers, who are still out in the woods. They even say that Othar Tryggvassen himself is out there!) Hopefully they'll get some good treasure soon, get their people back, and move on with you before your parents decide to come and drag you home.
The really big news, though, was that you managed to get into the Castle yourself! Well, not by yourself, of course -- you followed Agatha in.
Agatha Clay is a girl who is traveling with the Circus, who is a year or two older than yourself. She's really pretty, and really odd in a bunch of ways. Zeetha (the green-haired swordsmistress with the show) is training her to be a "warrior", which seems to consist of a lot of running and getting hit over the head, but you think the idea of being a warrior is really cool, and you can understand that it requires a lot of training. And she's got the most interesting stuff around here -- she's got a pet cat who talks, and a cute little Clank that she calls a "Dingbot" that's always riding around with her. You think she's actually a Spark, but she got really quiet when you asked her about it -- which probably means that she is. You tried to explain that you thought that Sparks are really glamorous, getting to work with Baron Wulfenbach and all, but then she got really quiet and didn't want to talk about it. You got the impression that she doesn't like the Baron much.
Anyway, you think she's really cool, and you're trying to be more like her -- you even got Countess Marie to make you a blondish dye so you would look a little more like her. And when you saw her going out into the woods towards the Castle a couple of days ago, you followed her.
She's a Spark, all right. With the Dingbot on her shoulder, she wandered right into the Castle gates, humming quietly as she did so. You were really scared, but this is what adventure is all about, right? So you followed about 20 yards behind as she went in.
It was really scary, but she seemed so calm about it. There were all kinds of deathtraps, but she waltzed past all of them. There was the giant swinging blade, which she just timed and then stepped past. A minute later, you took a deep breath, followed the same timing, and it missed you! That was scary enough, but then you saw her in the next room, with this big arm-thing trying to pick her up, but the Dingbot just climbed up it, dismantled it from the time, and it just fell apart, so you were able to go right past. There was more as well, but those were the scariest bits.
And then she was in the laboratory, humming even louder, while you watched quietly, peering around the corner. There was a big mirror on the wall, and a console with a lot of knobs and things (and a green stuffed animal sitting on it), and a pedestal in the middle of the room. She let the Dingbot walk down her arm, and it started fiddling with the knobs, and then things got really wierd.
It felt like you were being kind of stretched and bent and twisted -- almost like you were being squished. Somewhere in there, you must have stumbled, because you found yourself standing in the lab, with Agatha on the other side of it. Actually, stranger yet, there were two of Agatha standing there. One had a little rodent sitting on her shoulder, the other not, but both were looking every bit as confused as you were. You all were just starting to talk (you stammering an apology for sneaking in after her), when the creature appeared.
You'd grown up on the stories of the Perfect Construct, and you thought you had imagined all the strangest and scariest creatures possible, but it was worse. It must have had a hundred eyes, and huge tusks, and when it roared you couldn't imagine anything scarier in the entire world. You screamed and ran, all thought of glamorous adventures gone. To be fair, Agatha (both of her) ran right after you. Somewhere along the line, the little Dingbot grabbed onto you, and rode out of the Castle on your shoulder as you ran as fast as you could out the front gate.
Since them, you've really wanted to talk to Agatha about it, but it's awkward. You did sneak in after her, and you did see that she's a Spark. You feel kind of like a slime for being so sneaky, but you at least need to apologize to her. You aren't sure, but you have to wonder if you did something to wake the Construct up and send it after all of you.
You have talked to the rodent, though. He talks, just like her cat Krosp does! (You guess things like that just happen to Sparks -- it's just like in all the Heterodyne stories.) He says his name is Artie, and he seems really nice. He's a gerbil, which is a kind of animal you haven't seen before: he's kind of like a big rat, but much cuter. And he confided in you that he's from an entirely different world! His world is really different, without nearly as many Sparks, and these enormous cities and no Baron and all that. It's amazing stuff, and he's really nice.
Ever since the thing in the Castle, the little Dingbot has gotten really attached to you, riding around on your shoulder and everything. It's neat: you've never really had a pet before, much less a pet Clank. And you've discovered that you can kind of talk to it! It's pretty strange -- it doesn't talk in anything like ordinary human language -- but you can understand it if you listen really carefully. It needs winding every day, and it's really cute, the way it comes up to you and shyly asks to be wound. You've tried to tell it to go back to Agatha, but it just calls you "Mistress" and keeps following you. Agatha doesn't seem to mind, so for the moment you're enjoying having this odd little friend. But you still don't entirely understand it. Last night, it quietly got up and snuck out of the cabin, and didn't come back until morning. What does it do when it's off at night like that?
That's been the upside. The downside is that you've been having these terrible headaches for the past couple of days, ever since the Castle. Those are scary, but you have to wonder: do they mean something? You think about the way you managed to get into the Castle after Agatha -- yeah, she was doing the pathbreaking, but you did manage to get past the swinging blade and all. And now you can talk to the Dingbot, which most people can't do. And you keep remembering strange things and people that you're sure you've never seen before.
It's a little too thrilling to hope, but are you, maybe, a Spark? You're about the age that you've heard they usually "break through" and start inventing things; it's supposed to be really weird, and this thing of "remembering" how to do things is supposed to be the way it works. That would be so cool. You can't do much more than cross your fingers, but it can't hurt to hope, right?
And then there's the Jaegermonster. There's a trio of them who travel with the Circus, and everyone says that they're friendly, but they're really scary. After you ran out of the Castle, all screaming and frightened and stuff, you ran into one of them -- Maxim, the big purple one. (Who is a lot less scary than most Jaegermonsters, but that's not saying much.) You blurted out that you had been in the Castle and all, and he started sniffing you and acting all confused. And ever since then, he's been nosing around you. He's so quiet that you can't even tell he's around most of the time, but occasionally you spot him around a corner, or lurking on a cabin rooftop or something. It's really pretty creepy, but you aren't sure what to do about it. Maybe Master Payne can get him to back off?
Summary
You are Maria Antonia Fantasia Philomel, legendary partner of the Heterodyne Boys! With your firey red hair and freedom-loving ways, you help people in need everywhere.Well, no. But you really like the name "Maria" -- it's so much more exotic than Mary, isn't it? "Mary Thurmstein" doesn't have any ring to it at all: it's the name of an ordinary girl with mousey hair and annoying bratty brothers and sisters. So for now, you're going by "Maria".
Mary Thurmstein was born in the nearby town of Feuerholt, where she has ordinary parents and three really annoying siblings, two kid brothers and one kid sister. She is seventeen years old, and is probably destined to marry some stupid baker's son or something like that. She's a really good storyteller, even if the kids don't appreciate the way that she enhances the stories to make them more interesting.
You are the protagonist of the short story [Fan Fiction]. Yes, this sounds like your character is horribly ordinary and minor. Trust me -- you aren't.
Public Info
Hint:7NwZzbaU
Personality
You live at the midpoint between timidity and confidence. All your life, people have been telling you that you were ordinary -- that you were going to live an ordinary life, marry an ordinary man, never do anything serious. But you've always felt yourself called to do more than that, that you were going to be great, somehow. Now, you are finding yourself in the middle of what seem to be great events, and at times you just lose yourself in the flow. But you're still always second-guessing yourself.You are a good woman, and you try to be nice; deep down, you see yourself as kind of heroic. But you have something of a temper, and sometimes that comes through. And you have to admit, you find stories involving big guns and huge battles kind of thrilling.
Some People You Know (Maria)
The Heterodyne Boys: The heroes of legend, who had all kinds of adventures, traveling the world, saving people and generally being dreamy. They disappeared about 20 years ago, but you have faith that they'll come back someday. Your friends call you a "fangirl", as if that was a bad thing.
Lucrezia Mongfish: The villainous daughter of Professor Mongfish, who eventually claimed to reform and married Bill Heterodyne. You know, deep down, that she was still a villain, though, and was all wrong for him.
Baron Klaus von Wulfenbach: In the stories, he's the Heterodyne Boys' sidekick, and is really pretty goofy. Now, though, he's the ruler of rulers pretty much everywhere, and a lot of people grumble that he's kind of a nasty person. Still, most people say that it's more peaceful now than it was before he came.
Othar Tryggvassen: Another big hero, almost as famous as the Heterodynes. He's supposed to wander around, fighting villains and saving innocent people. The rumor says that he's out in the forest right now, and that Embi knows him. That's so cool! You really want to meet him and get his autograph.
Countess Marie: The co-owner of the Circus, who keeps everything running. For someone who runs something as cool as a Circus, it's kind of weird how much she reminds you of your mother. She's really nice, though, and you've been tagging along with her, helping her with the Circus as much as you can.
Master Payne: Marie's husband, the owner of Payne's Circus of Adventure. He's more like what you'd expect: big, a bit loud, a little mysterious, very stern and all that. He's kind of scary, even when he's not trying to be. (And he's often trying to be.)
Abner: Master Payne's assistant, who helps run the Circus. He might be the person to talk to about Maxim.
Agatha Clay: This cool Spark lady who is part of the Circus. You're pretty sure that she built Dingbot Prime. You really need to talk to her about what happened in the Castle -- you don't want her angry with you, but your Mom always taught you that honest discussion is the best way to clear the air.
Dingbot Prime: The little Clank that usually follows Agatha around, but which has been riding on your shoulder for the past couple of days. It's really sweet, and very faithful: it does whatever you tell it to. It's surprisingly emotional for a Clank -- even now that you can talk to it, it mostly communicates by emotion. But you do wonder why it snuck off last night.
Artie: The talking gerbil from another world, who arrived during that thing in the Castle. He's really sweet, and you want to see if you can help him find a way back to his world.
Krosp: Agatha's pet talking cat. He's -- well, not nearly as sweet as Artie, but you do find yourself reflexively scritching him from time to time. He reminds you of your Dad: he's all practical, worrying about what might happen and what the sensible thing to do is.
Zeetha: She's the Circus' swordmistress. Everyone says that she's really some kind of warrior princess from a lost city, where her green hair is normal. Now that is real adventure -- that's why you find the Circus so neat. She's teaching Agatha to be a warrior; you'd love to tag along and learn as well.
Embi: He's a really odd little man. Emphasis on the "odd" and "little". His skin is all black, like nothing you've ever seen before, and he's really short -- a full head shorter than you. He says that he made a vow when he was a kid, to see the entire world before he dies. But the world is really big, so he's been wandering for 130 years now. That can't really be true, can it?
Dr. Silas Merlot: The scientist who paid you a silver coin five years ago, to show him around the grounds of the Castle. He was really intense, and a little cranky when you assured him that this was the location, but seemed pretty decent for a teacher.
Dimo, Oggie and Maxim: Three Jaegermonsters who are part of the Circus -- you're told that they are the clowns, and you can kind of see that: they're pretty silly when they aren't being scary. But Maxim is following you around, and that's creepy.
Female Spark (from Comic) (Status: In Game)
Pictures
Agatha's uniform on board the Castle can be seen [here] -- a tight red pantsuit.
Agatha has extraordinary green eyes, as can be seen while she's in disguise on (v4, p55-59).
Agatha in Skifander novice garb can be seen on (v4, p63) and subsequent pages.
Her Circus/villager outfit can be seen on (v4, p66/69).
A fine "Agatha in her bloomers" shot at (v4, p88).
As Lucrezia on (v5, p59).
Plots:
Agatha Transformed (Agatha Transformed)
Crisis of Infinite Agathas (Infinite Agathas)
Plague of Dingbots (Replicators)
Family History (Family History)
Bluesheets:
Master Payne's Circus of Adventure (Circus Bluesheet)
Abilities and Disabilities
Build Dingbots (Small Clanks) -- You have a particular knack for constructing little Clanks, which you've nicknamed "Dingbots".
You may construct a Dingbot once every half-hour for free, without spending any points; to build them more frequently, you must spend one point each. To build a Dingbot, you must focus on the task for five minutes (two minutes if Dingbot Prime is assisting you), do some construction, and hum while doing so.
You may send Dingbots off on specialized tasks such as exploration or repair. Most of them are not as self-motivated or clever as Dingbot Prime, but they can usually do one task reasonably well. Each Dingbot (aside from Dingbot Prime) can only be used once (to keep this mechanic from running the GMs ragged).
Hums (Hums) -- Music is a central part of your being, and has always affected your Spark. If you are deeply focused on Sparking, instead of ranting you may instead hum. Your humming is relatively loud, and strange -- it is not a conventional melody, and sounds almost tuneless to most people. But the music sounds right to you.
Humming boosts your Spark, and will tend to improve your results, but you must be utterly focused on the construction task at hand, paying no attention to what is happening around you, and scarcely any even to your lab assistants.
Intimidation (Intimidation) -- You are a person with a powerful personality. As such, you have the practiced (and sometimes reflexive) ability to command others through intimidation.
To intimidate someone, show them this card and spend one Point. Rant at them with power and fury for at least one minute -- try to scare the hell out of them. You are powerful, and dangerous, and not someone to be crossed. You may then give them orders, which they must follow for at least ten minutes, until their nerves calm down a bit; until then, they are keyed up and scared.
There are limits to this ability. Other strong personalities, as well as certain others, are able to resist Intimidation; it works better on normal people and weak Sparks than it does on, eg, powerful Sparks. And you cannot order someone to do something that is counter to their own basic principles, such as (in most cases) kill someone -- if you try to do so, they may spend one Point to defy you.
You may not use this ability on any given player more than once, nor may you use it overall more than once an hour.
If you have this ability, and someone else tries to use it on you, you may counter by spending a Point and going into Intimidation mode yourself. This should result in a towering argument at top volume, but neither of you winds up scaring the other.
Headaches (Headaches) -- For the past couple of days, you have been plagued by frequent headaches, striking you whenever you try to think too hard. These headaches are sudden and sharp, and debilitating for a few minutes. When you get the headaches, you tend to get flashes of people you've never seen before, places you've never been, and devices you're sure you've never seen.
When it seems an appropriate time -- when you are trying to concentrate on something -- have a headache. Roleplay it heavily. Consult a GM to see if you have any visions. Have these headaches when appropriate, but please no more often than once every half-hour.
Master Musician (Master Musician) -- Music is an intrinsic part of who you are. You can play existing compositions skillfully, as well as invent new one quickly and intuitively. However, are at your best when using an instrument: you can sing and hum a bit, but can't get the kind of subtlety that way as you can with an instrument.
Understands Dingbot (Understands Dingbot) -- Dingbot Prime speaks in a queer little language, made of up gestures and little mechanical noises. Nonetheless, you can understand what it is saying reasonably well.
Show this card to Dingbot Prime, who may afterwards communicate with you freely. It must speak quietly (so other players cannot hear), and it should tend to gesture a lot as part of talking, but it may speak to you in ordinary English.
Historical Background
The following were notes while the character was evolving. They do not necessarily represent the way it came out.
Our Heroine. Transformed into Maria at the beginning of the game. Agatha is relatively quick-thinking under most circumstances: she tends to act instinctively. While she has no particularly great combat training, she is an instinctively talented hand-to-hand fighter. As seen on, eg, [this page], she tends to take first initiative and get the drop on people. When all others are scattering and running (v4, p25), she will run right into the face of trouble to help people.
Agatha loved Dr. Beetle. She still carries around some resentment at Klaus for causing his death.
As seen for the first time on [this page], Agatha has a real problem with "sleep-Sparking". Might or might not work that in -- it hasn't been as apparent in later volumes. Note that, while Agatha's specialty little devices, she is capable of building large clanks when she wants to: the Beetleburg Clank is quite substantial, and she literally builds that in her sleep. She sleep-Sparks again on [this page], when she apparently [builds] Dingbot Prime.
We almost have to work in some sort of "Agatha in her bloomers" joke, which tends to happen when she sleep-Sparks. Possibly Helen is involved with that, and thoroughly disapproves? (Agatha is a little shy, but Helen is Victorian.) According to [this page], Agatha has never worn trousers before winding up on the Castle -- she is much more comfortable in a dress. (Fortunately for Helen.)
Agatha has an [acute understanding of cliche], and sort of knows how to deal with Othar as a result. But she never quite manages to grasp the depth of how psychopathic he really is.
According to Krosp, Agatha [talks in her sleep].
Like all truly great Sparks, Agatha is [coolest in a crisis].
Agatha dreams in [mechanical technicolor].
She constructed the Dingbots, especially Dingbot Prime, and [feels a real sense of responsibility] towards them. Indeed, an excessive sense of responsibility is a key character trait in her, almost to the point of being a flaw.
Adam and Lilith were [expecting chaos would ensue] if Agatha lost her locket. Interesting. Obviously they knew she was a Spark, but is there more to it than that? How much of a "weirdness magnet" effect is there here?
For all that Agatha is a good guy, she's still a Spark, with all that implies. On (v4, p7), note the fairly nasty grin when she manages to repair a powerful weapon, and the fact that it is explicitly a Heterodyne weapon. Intellectually, she's focused on saving people and being a hero, but when she's sparking she is just as dangerous as the rest. (Arnis (11-30-06): Note, though, that Agatha is in some ways a bit of a pacifist, at least early on. How often does she get surprised at violence? http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/cgi-bin/gg101.cgi?date=20061106) Justin: yep, but I think this mainly illustrates the intellect vs. instinct thing. Under normal circumstances, Agatha generally doesn't like violence -- she occasionally has a nasty sense of humor, but premeditated violence isn't her style. But when she's Sparking, I think all bets are off. Also, note (v4, p93), when she begins designing "defenses" for the Circus, and winds up designing enough firepower to level a small town.
Agatha knows (v4, p9) that the best way to control Krosp is by stroking his ego.
She plays piano reasonably well (v4, p70). This isn't surprising, given her affinity for music and Lilith's teaching. We see on (v5, p43-44) that everyone except Krosp thinks she's really good at it. We may want to get ourselves a CD of organ music (preferably classic "creepy horror movie" organ music), to play if and when she needs to play the Silverodeon in-game.
She is a pretty instinctively talented actress, with a specific knack for playing Lucrezia (v4, p76).
Agatha's wagon, when traveling with the Circus, is Baba Yaga, which is nicely described and depicted on (v4, p80). She is portraying "Madame Olga", the fortune-teller (v4, p103) when with them.
Her feelings about Gil are very conflicted. On the one hand, she's rather terribly in love with him. On the other, she really doesn't like anyone pointing that out (v4, p99).
Bill and Barry are well-remembered, and of course Agatha is our hero. But it is very interesting to note that, according to (v4, p102), the "old Heterodynes" were apparently evil incarnate -- the worst of the bad Sparks. They killed and looted indiscriminately, and the Jagerkin were engineered to be their killing machines.
Agatha's heroism is pretty much instinctive. Immediately after telling Othar that she's done with hero-ing on (v4, p111), something goes wrong, and she reflexively grabs a blaster and dives into it. She's actually pretty unusual in that regard -- when she wants to go help the people of Passholdt (v5, p22), no one else in the Circus thinks that's even vaguely sensible.
She's been tending to fix things by using her Dingbots (v5, p34). By now, we get the impression there are a lot of Dingbots hanging around.
When she gets immersed in a project, she automatically begins to hum, as we see on (v5, p37). It appears that she often does this instead of ranting; this may play into her abilities. Does humming have different effects than ranting?
Clanks just don't seem to scare her, as seen on (v5, p38) and other places. No matter how big they are, she instinctively understands them and how they tick (as it were), and has a remarkable instinct for how to disable them.
It isn't clear whether Agatha is actually in love with Lars, but she definitely enjoys flirting with him (v5, p39-40). Really, her feelings there are pretty mixed and unsure, in contrast to his very clear ones. Indeed, this disconnect has all sorts of potential for a good romance plot. Might want to have one of the other Agathas fall for him, forcing him to really think about who he's looking for here.
As of Balan's Gap, Agatha still kind of believes that Gil is evil (v5, p66-67), at least intellectually. But she still cares for him deeply.
The device that "infects" Agatha with Lucrezia's consciousness on (v5, p88) is musical in nature. Again, music seems deeply bound up with everything around her.
In the current story, Agatha [re-emerges when the Other sleeps].
Agatha, and Mirror-Agatha, should have an explicit special ability for music, which allows her to really play the Silverodeon well.
Notes specifically about Maria are in her character sheet.
Note that Agatha gets the Circus Bluesheet, but Maria does not.
History
Agatha's earliest years were spent on the run, with Barry moving her from place to place, according to [this page].
According to [this page], Agatha was only five years old when she discovered her music and her Spark. One gets the impression that this is remarkably young, even by Spark standards. Even at that young age, Agatha [sounded much older]. On [this page], Lilith admit that they've known all along that she was a powerful Spark.
When Agatha was quite small, her parents and Barry "went away" -- we still don't know where. Barry gave her the Trilobyte?, apparently to protect her from her own powers, which were manifesting at a very early age. The locket suppressed her powers, giving her a headache whenever she tried to use her spark. The result is that she grew up with something of an inferiority complex, since nothing she did worked right.
Note that, by [The Electric Coffin], Agatha's locket is now a trilobyte with the wings of Wulfenbach Castle. Also, from [this page] we see that she has basically gone into business righting wrongs.
We know that she will eventually discover some sort of [time viewing device]. She appears to be with Gil, Moloch and a Geisterdamen -- all of those are seriously interesting data points.
Her [first kiss with Gil] is right after defeating the Slaver Engine; getting past certain death is something of a turn-on.
Here is [the moment she finally twigs] to who she is.
When the Circus is in serious trouble (v4, p24-28), she simply dove in to help them, forming their association.
Her real character sheet can be found in Real Agatha.
Amount of Character Potential: Excellent (The main character; we'd probably never hear the end of it if she wasn't in-game. And she's quite strong as a character: highly tied in, and will inevitably wind up in plots. Only weakness is that she's too central, so we have to weaken her deliberately.)