Character: Agatha Heterodyne, aka The Baroness
Character Sheet (Agatha Heterodyne, aka The Baroness)
Combat Value: 8
You are Baroness Agatha Heterodyne, ruler of most of Europa, keeper of the peace. You know that you are doing what is necessary, fighting back the chaos that always threatens to overwhelm the world. But the job is so hard sometimes. And today -- well, you really don't know where you are today.Your biological parents were Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish, the greatest hero and villainess of the age. Thirty years ago, the world was in bad shape, with the Spark Wars in their fullest swing ever. Nation was set against nation, Spark against Spark, and the ordinary people were caught in the middle. Whether you looked at the giant Clanks or the ravenous Constructs, it was a terribly dangerous time. Since the last time of real peace, in the days of the Storm King 200 years ago, things had been slowly falling apart, and they were at their nadir.
The worst of the bad bunch were the Heterodynes. For hundreds of years, the Heterodyne family had been made up of ruthless, violent Sparks. Most Spark families were merely greedy -- they might cause damage, but ultimately they were after power, so they were reasonably rational. But the Heterodynes were simply a murderous bunch, reveling in death and destruction. The sight of a Heterodyne or their Jaegermonster servants would be enough to send entire towns fleeing in terror.
And then came Bill and Barry Heterodyne. They eschewed their parents' evil ways, and set out to be heroes instead. Oh, they made some mistakes along the way, and heaven knows they made a lot of enemies, but slowly they beat back the chaos. They defeated the wickedest Sparks, and occasionally killed the ones who were completely incorrigible, but mainly they sought to make peace through forceful diplomacy. They established a web of treaties, calmed everyone's fears, built up defenses, and convinced people, one at a time, that peace was possible. For a decade or so, things began to actually get good throughout the lands, and the Heterodynes became revered as heroes.
Of course, some Sparks were deeply set in their mad-scientist ways, and opposed the Heterodynes simply because they could. Bill and Barry managed to bring most of them around one at a time, befriending them and making allies out of them. The most incorrigible were Professor Mongfish and his daughter Lucrezia. For a decade, they played a game of cat-and-mouse with the Heterodyne Boys. The Boys always won in the end, but the Mongfishes would always come back with some plan of conquest.
In the end, though, they recognized that they couldn't win, and the Mongfishes were always practical in their way. The Professor reformed and became a friend of the Boys. And Lucrezia, who had always maintained a secret love for Bill Heterodyne, married him. Of course, she was still a villainess, and so she rather casually discarded her previous lover: Klaus von Wulfenbach, the Heterodyne Boys' sometime sidekick. She drugged Wulfenbach, dumped him in the Hidden City of Skifander, nestled in the forests of northern Africa, and professed her innocence in his disappearance as she married Bill.
Those were your parents: the hero and the villainess. To this day, you don't know whether Lucrezia really meant to reform, or whether it was a ruse from the beginning. You suspect the latter, which is why you always cringe inwardly when people tell you how much you look and sound like your mother -- you despise everything she stood for, and pray every day that you won't turn into her. But whether or not she was reformed for a time, there is no question that she was a villain at the end.
The Other attacked the Heterodynes less than a year after the marriage of Bill and Lucrezia. At first, no one knew what it was, but everyone knew the effect. Populations would be taken by the Other's slaver wasps: if a wasp flew into your mouth, you were dead, turned into a Revenant slave of the Other, one of the shambling zombie horde. The following months were one big war, with the Heterodynes on one side, and the growing army of the Other on the other. The Boys gradually figured out what they were fighting, tracing the creation of Revenants to the slaver wasps, and the creation of slaver wasps to the great Hive Engines that they were born in. But the face of the Other remained a mystery until the final battle.
You still don't know the details of what happened: the few reports have been vague. But you do know that the Other was revealed as your mother, Lucrezia, who had disappeared months before. Some say that she had been possessed by some sort of alien force, some that she had always been evil, and her conversion to good had been simply a ruse. Regardless, the effect was clear. The Boys and the Mongfishes vanished -- to this day, no one knows where. And things began to fall apart again.
As for you, you don't remember much of those early days -- just snatches in dreams. What you do know is that your Uncle Barry snatched you away and went into hiding as the chaos began to flood back in. You knew nothing of this: you were simply a girl traveling with her uncle and his friends, moving from place to place every year or so. There was you, and Barry (who you remember as a giant, although in retrospect he was simply getting a bit fat), and his Construct servants Punch and Judy. The four of you made an odd little family, but you remember it as good times.
You broke through as a Spark when you were very young -- only five years old, which is almost unheard-of. At the time you didn't know what was happening to you: you were simply learning to hum the strange music in your head, and build the things that came to you as you did so. But Barry was utterly nonplussed by it. No one ever breaks through that young, and he wasn't prepared to deal with it. And so, he left. You don't know where: you assume he went to find his brother and bring him back to raise you properly. But whether he found him or not, he never came back. In the meantime, he left you in the care of Punch and Judy.
The three of you were left in the town of Beetleburg, under the care of Professor Beetle, one of the Sparks who had originally fought and later befriended the Heterodynes. By this time, Klaus von Wulfenbach had returned, and begun to conquer Europa, and Barry didn't trust him: Klaus had disappeared at altogether too convenient a time, and Barry suspected him of being a servant of the Other. But Klaus was simply too powerful to challenge, and Barry didn't know what he would do to you. So you were placed under a false identity: you were "Agatha Clay", niece of "Adam" and "Lilith". Beetle would hide you, and you would be raised in secret.
That plan lasted about a year. You were only seven years old when the Geisterdamen attacked. No one really knew what they were or where they were from, nor their agenda, but now it came out that they were the most loyal servants of the Other, and still doing her bidding. You still don't know what they wanted with you, but it appears that you were somehow key to bringing her back. You still have nightmares about that prospect: you envision her as a giant leering figure, out to claim you body and soul. You have sworn that you will die before that happens. But the price of resisting her has been so much death...
You have no idea how the Geisterdamen found you, but they attacked Beetleburg in force. The battle was loud and terrible, with their giant spider creatures up against Professor Beetle's small army of Clanks. He held them off for about two days, and sent word to Klaus that he needed help urgently. It didn't arrive in time for him -- he was killed at the end of the second day, as the Geisters invaded the city en masse. For two more days, Adam and Lilith evaded capture, with you riding on Adam's shoulders as you ducked in and out of the city. But in the end, the Geisters found you, killed your adoptive "aunt" and "uncle", and took you capture.
You shudder to think what they would have done to you if Klaus hadn't gotten there. You had been raised to be suspicious of him, and you had no idea what to expect as the giant blimp called Castle Wulfenbach loomed over the horizon, but it proved your salvation. Klaus waded into the Geisters with the full force of his army of Clanks and Jaegermonsters, already the mightiest force Europa had ever seen. He personally dove into the middle of the fray, and was the one who killed the High Priestess of the Geisterdamen. He was frightening, himself, all grim and determined, but when he picked you up and carried you back to his floating Castle, you could tell that he cared about you sincerely, and you clutched closely to him.
Klaus adopted you as if you were his own daughter, raising side-by-side his son Gilgamesh. It was immediately clear that he was no servant of the Other; he was her worst enemy. He was a harder man than your uncle had been, and he taught you his own way of doing things. The Heterodyne Boys had made people love them with their peaceful ways -- they were practically revered as gods by some people, and so long as they were on hand to maintain their diplomacy, they could sustain a measure of peace. But when they had disappeared, it had all fallen completely apart, and quickly gotten as bad as ever, if not worse. So when Klaus returned from Skifander, he had decided that a more forceful approach was going to be necessary. Conquest wasn't a path that would make people love him as much as they had the Boys, but if they feared him enough to stay peaceful, that would do.
Two years later, Father (you had begun to think of Klaus as your father by then -- certainly he was moreso than any other man you had known) placed you and Gil in the "school" on board Castle Wulfenbach. Some years earlier, he had begun his plan to bring the next generation together. As he conquered various lands, he would take the eldest children of the nobility hostage, bring them on board Castle Wulfenbach, and raise them there. This served a number of purposes. First, it made sure that their parents stayed good, and didn't disrupt the peace too much: with their heirs hostage, they had great incentive to keep him happy. Second, it allowed him to teach the children to respect and fear him and the Wulfenbach name. Third, it taught friendship and unity to an entire generation: in theory, this would lead them to be more peaceful towards each other in the future.
He knew that you and Gil wouldn't be accepted by the other children as peers if they knew who you were, though, so he contrived to hide your identities and powers. Gil had just broken through as a Spark himself (at age eight -- older than you, but still exceptional), building his little friend Zoing. But Barry had left you with a locket, specially contrived to hide your Spark: he knew that, as a child-Spark, and especially as a female one, you would be a prize for anyone looking for a perfect captive wife. So the locket was designed to suppress your Spark until you were old enough to use it properly. Klaus took the locket, enhanced and duplicated it, and implanted a variation of it into both you and Gil. You would not be revealed as either Sparks or as the heirs to the Wulfenbach empire until he felt the time was right.
Those were happy years. You can't even resent Father for suppressing your Spark all that time: it allowed you a certain innocence that you wouldn't otherwise have been able to have. The other children were a mixed bag -- originally Sleipnir and Theo were close friends with you and Gil, while Zulenna was a stuck-up creature who you couldn't stand, and Z was simply indifferent to you. Funny how time changes people: you wouldn't have believed then that Zulenna would wind up your closest friend, and Theo your deadliest enemy.
The school was run by Von Pinn, a part-Jaegermonster/part-Geisterdamen/part-Human creation of your mother. She was a figure of fear among all the students -- impossibly fast and strong, and ruthlessly menacing to the children, she made the perfect bodyguard at the same time that she kept you all somewhat under control. She balked at first at the idea of having anything to do with a child of Lucrezia, whom she hated passionately, and even after she accepted you she drove you harder than any of the rest (even harder than Gil, to whom she was pretty strict). But the two of you developed a real bond over the years, especially as you came to understand how horrible Lucrezia had been to her. When you were 12, you formally apologized to her on behalf of your family, and from then on you could tell that she had forgiven you for who you were.
Still, even Von Pinn couldn't keep an eye on all of you all the time, and the lot of you were real troublemakers. You, Gil and Theo were the worst of the bunch, always getting into trouble with Von Pinn and Father. He was stern with you when you did something foolish, and got genuinely angry a few times when you actually disrupted operations in the Castle, but even he knew that you needed to explore and push your boundaries.
That was when you discovered Bangladesh DuPree. She was a self-styled "pirate queen", which you found irresistably romantic, and she was such a cheery troublemaker herself that you took an immediate liking to her. Indeed, you considered her something of a role model for a year or two there, and she only encouraged that, helping you and Gil create new and better trouble on board the Castle. She saw you as a bit of a protege, and you saw in her a kind of older sister.
It was a bad day when you first saw Bang kill someone. You'd heard the rumors, that she was your father's pet assassin and torturer, but you hadn't been able to believe it: she was always so friendly and happy, just the opposite of the stories. But then there was the day when a saboteur tried to bring down the Castle. You were caught in the middle of the mess, and were there when the man was caught. Two illusions were shattered that day, as Father almost casually ordered the man executed, and Bang -- that cheerful smile intact the entire time -- happily tortured him to death. You ran away in tears, telling both of them that you never wanted to see them again.
That was never likely, but you had an effect on both of them. That evening, Bang came to you to talk. She genuinely didn't understand why you were upset, and through your tears you yelled at her, cursed her, beat on her and eventually collapsed crying into her arms. She tried to explain she she was a worshipper of the death-goddess Kali, and that killing was literally a sacrament for her, but you could tell that she was shaken and rationalizing.
Over the next two years, you and Bang became ever closer. You were constantly at odds, but you were teaching each other all the time. She was always explaining her own Manichaean viewpoint, that one had to always be practical, and the value of fear in getting things done. It wasn't really what you wanted to hear, but you had to admit that she and Father were getting results that way: the lands were more peaceful than ever before due to their peculiar variety of tough love. Meanwhile, you acted as a conscience for her, never letting her get away with simply killing because she could, and calling her on it when she got casual about it -- if death was going to be a sacrament, it wasn't something to do lightly. She had let herself simply get used to killing, but you taught her to treat it more as a last resort. In the end, the two of you wound up far closer than before. You didn't have her on a pedestal any more, but you had come to really understand her, in all her complexity.
When you were 15, Father decided that it was time for the charade to end. He removed the Spark-blockers from you and Gil, allowing both of you to begin to explore your own abilities. He announced to everyone that you were not ordinary orphans of noble families as he had been pretending, but were actually his own children. (By this time, he and you had long since come to regard yourselves as father and daughter.) And he told both of you that it was time to go off and finish your educations elsewhere.
Gil was sent off to Paris, on the borders of his lands -- the biggest neutral city, friendly to him but not firmly under Father's control. Gil had learned much from the people coming and going on Castle Wulfenbach, but the only way to really learn about the world was to experience it for himself. Father quietly confided in you his concerns: no matter how much security he sent, Gil was inevitably going to be in some danger from the uncontrolled environment. (And you knew perfectly well that Gil would chafe at the security, and elude it frequently.) But he had to trust that his son could deal with such crises as arose.
As for you, he wasn't willing to put you so far outside his control. You pouted and stamped your feet as only a 15-year-old girl can do, but he held firm: you weren't just some random Spark, you were perhaps the most powerful female Spark ever, and the heir to the Heterodyne legend. You were the ultimate politcal pawn, and he wasn't going to have that happen to you.
So instead, you were sent back to Beetleburg. Professor Beetle had been more than just the ruler of the town -- he had also been the hereditary headmaster of Transylvania Polygnostic University, which was situated there. It was the best school within Wulfenbach territory, and despite Beetle's death, the school was still thriving. So off you went, for a couple of years of finishing school there.
TPU was a different world. You had more freedom, but no truly close friends as you had known them on the Castle. Among other things, as a powerful Spark, many of the students and even some of the teachers rather resented you. You eventually found that you got along best with the top of the faculty, the ones who were secure enough in themselves to not perceive you as a threat. In particular, you wound up close friends with Beetle's successor as headmaster, Dr. Silas Merlot. Silas was a man who truly enjoyed teaching, and loved his job running the school. With his second-in-command, Dr. Hugo Glassvitch, the two of them wound up doing much to tutor you personally. Silas especially enjoyed it. You knew that that was partly ego -- being able to teach a powerful Spark let him feel like he was partly responsible for your accomplishments. But he really was a marvelously intelligent man, and you enjoyed his company.
You particularly enjoyed working with him on what become your joint passion: the life and works of the great Spark Amagog. This mysterious figure lived about 200 years ago, around the same time as the great master of Clanks, Van Rijn. Amagog's specialty was nothing as mundane as robotics, though -- instead, he cared mainly about abstract matters of time and space. And that, you reasoned, might provide you with some clues to help Bang with her problem.
You weren't seeing as much of your "sister" Bangladesh DuPree at this point, but you still cared a lot about her, and you had eventually gotten her to tell you why she was here. Her homelands in eastern India were still trapped in what is often called "the Brigadoon Effect"; you'd heard about this, but never really looked into it before. Once you did begin to research, you learned how, about 80 years ago, a mad Muslim Spark had decided to isolate his part of the world by setting up a giant force field that affected time itself. These lands, which covered much of the Middle East and south Asia, started to "jump" through time. They would reside in normal time for one month, and then would leap forward ten years; in the intervening time, all the outside world saw of them was an impenetrable silvery shell. About 30 years ago, the Heterodyne Boys, working with the Muslim hero the Iron Sheik and the mysterious knight known as "Ember", had managed to fix most of those lands in time, by finding the Time Ruby and keeping it near the center of the effect. The Iron Sheik went on to become the ruler of all of Persia, and everyone lived happily ever after.
Mostly, anyway. The problem was, the Time Ruby wasn't quite powerful enough to cover all of the Brigadoon Effect -- a bit of eastern India was uncovered, and continued to jump. That was where Bang came from. She was a hero of her people, who some years before had left her homeland to find a solution to the problem. Father had made a deal with her: he would search for an answer, if she would work for him and help him subdue and control his lands. She agreed, and he did try, but he simply had too many things to deal with -- he never was able to apply himself to her problem. So you figured, this was a serious project you could work on.
You were in the right place at the right time for the project. The Time Ruby had been created by Amagog centuries ago, and Silas was perhaps the world's greatest expert on Amagog and his works. So the two of you threw yourselves into the project, chasing leads and trying to figure out if there might be something else in Amagog's scattered cache of treasures that would suffice for Bang. The problem was, Amagog hadn't simply died and left his devices behind. Instead, surrounded by angry peasants and nobility that didn't care about his relatively abstract studies, he had picked up his gears and just left. One day, he had his own mighty Castle, a week or so's ride from Beetleburg. The next, it was all simply gone: not only had Amagog vanished, so had the Castle. Even his legendary monster, the "Perfect Construct" of legend (accounts vary about the nature of the beast, but everyone seemed to agree that it was large and scary), wasn't heard from again.
So you pursued other avenues. Rumor had it that Amagog had left descendents, and you quickly determined that that was true: the Time Ruby had been kept by Amagog's son, who had moved to the West Pole (the Rock of Gibraltar) sometime before Amagog himself vanished. Your father and his party, in their famous Race to the West Pole, had gone there and pleaded their case to the family, who relented and gave the Time Ruby to the Iron Sheik. You reasoned that perhaps they had other devices that might also have some effect.
It took a lot of digging, but you eventually found the last direct descendents of Amagog, a pair of brothers named Omar and Moloch von Zinzer. After giving up the Time Ruby, the years hadn't been entirely kind to them -- they had wound up working as mercenaries, hiring themselves out to whichever noble or Spark could promise them the best money and security. They weren't the nicest people around, both of them angry with the world, cynical and prone to moody anger. But they could be bought, and that was exactly what you did. You promised them positions in your army (well, Father's army, and he wasn't entirely happy to find that you were adding people to it), if they would provide you with any assistance possible in finding your answers.
That didn't prove to be a lot. They were a penniless pair, and there hadn't been in possession of much treasure to begin with. You only found one clue: an incomplete "brooch" in Moloch's possession. He had simply treated it as a piece of broken jewelry, but you could tell that it was far more -- all indications were that it was the "Reality Stabilizer" referred to in some of Amagog's surviving notes. If complete and powered properly, it was supposed to be able to ground out all warps of time and space. But of course, it was incomplete, missing a key control crystal that was clearly supposed to plug into its center. You had made progress, but you still didn't have a solution for Bang's problem.
After two years of study at TPU, Father summoned you and Gil both home again. Seeing Gil again was like being punched. You had always liked him as your brother and dearest friend, but it wasn't until that moment, having not seen him for two years and not admitting to yourself how much that was hurting you, that you realized how deeply you were in love with him.
The next several months were a romantic dance. While rumor said that he had gotten into all sorts of amorous adventures in Paris, you had no such experience, and didn't know how to approach him about it. The result was months of awkwardness and frustration. You wanted him to simply know how you felt. Talking about it didn't even seem possible: what if he was offended, and hated you for your inappropriate passion? The only thing worse than not having him was the idea of losing his friendship as well. But eventually, the time simply presented itself. You don't even remember the details of the argument (some stupid thing about the Jaegermonsters), but you found yourselves kissing passionately. It was immediately clear that he cared for you every bit as much as you did him.
Things stayed like that for several months. You never consummated the relationship -- you had enough control of yourselves to never quite be casual about that -- but you gradually resolved to marry. Gil proposed to you (using a nicely-decorated gas-system connector, of all things, but it was to hand when he decided to propose), and you happily accepted. You were both scared of what Father would say, and Gil wanted to simply elope, but you were determined to do this properly. So you went and told him, and he was happy for you. Too happy, as it turned out.
Everyone had thought that the threat of the Other was over -- she had been gone for virtually your entire life, and even the Geisterdamen had been crushed a decade earlier. But they weren't all dead, and they hadn't stopped scheming. As you learned much too late, a group of worshippers of the Other had remained in the town of Passholdt, and the local Spark had continued to experiment with slaver wasps. And he had finally achieved what had never been possible before: a wasp capable of not only producing more-normal Revenants, who could pass for normal people, but could infect Sparks.
It seemed strange when Father ordered the Clanks and Jaegers away from Castle Wulfenbach: that was unprecedented for a man who always wanted to be in control of every situation. But when he began inviting Geisterdamen up to the Castle, you got scared. He knew as well as you did that the Geisters' ultimate goal had always been to use you as a tool to bring back the Other. (How, exactly, was never clear to you, but it seemed to involve turning your body into a shell for their evil Mistress. It was the most horrifying thing you could imagine.) So making friends with them, and making excuses for them, was stranger than you could imagine.
You and Gil began to investigate, and you slowly tracked it down. Someone on board had been in contact with the Geisters, smuggling things on and off the Castle. And eventually you found the thing that made your soul cold: in Father's quarters, was the tiniest Hive Engine you had ever seen. Your beloved Father was a Revenant. And you knew as well as anyone that there was no cure for that. But the worst was yet to come. When you told Gil, he grabbed you, and declared that, much though he regretted it, you were his prisoner. While you had been prowling around the quarters, Father had turned Gil as well.
You almost gave up in that moment. No, that's not true -- you did give up. The people you loved most in the world were essentially dead, permanently enslaved to the greatest horror the world had ever seen. You meekly went along with him, and would probably have wound up as the second coming of the Other, if it wasn't for Zeetha.
Zeetha was Gil's cousin, a green-haired warrior princess from the hidden city of Skifander. (Emphasis on the "warrior".) While you and Gil were away at school, Father had begun to open relations with Skifander, the land where he had spent several years and where his wife -- Gil's mother -- still lived. The Skifandese were suspicious of him, after he left them for over a decade, but were willing to hear him out. So they had sent the Queen's third daughter, Princess Zeetha, to act as their ambassador. She had spent a number of months touring around the Wulfenbach lands, learning about the outside world enough to serve as a well-educated emissary between the her people and yours, and then come to the Castle. You didn't know her well, but you already respected her brilliance as a fighter: you are no slouch with a sword yourself, but in the few times you fenced her, she casually took you apart.
She had begun to sense that things were strange even before you did, and escaped into the labyrinthine recesses of Castle Wulfenbach. And when you were taken prisoner, she decided the time had come to act. She knocked out Gil, grabbed you, and the two of you began your desperate fight. You had no idea which humans on board could be trusted, but it was a safe bet that some of them were Revenants, and all of them were under Father's direct command. No one on board would believe the preposterous idea that Father was a Revenant, so you couldn't get much assistance on that front. So instead you made a tactical retreat, got out to the countryside, and found the one set of allies you could absolutely trust: the Jaegermonsters.
The Jaegers had served Father for decades, but it was an alliance of convenience. The truth was, they had always been bound, body and soul, to the Heterodyne clan. When they first came to this world, centuries ago, they had no protectors, and tough as they were, they couldn't survive with everyone against them -- as far as the populace was concerned, they were monsters to be hunted down. So they struck a bargain with the old, Bad Heterodynes. In exchange for absolute service, the Heterodynes would share their lands, their command, even their very life-force with the Jaegers. The strength and invulnerabiliy of the Jaegers comes from their great store of what they simply call "Life", which they can share around. But their supply is limited, and they can't readily create more. By bonding to the Heterodynes (through a kind of genetic manipulation that has been largely lost to history), your family could provide them with a bit more Life, to help them keep going.
So you went to the Jaegers, and explained the situation. Father and Gil were now essentially dead. The only people in between the Other and absolute power were you and Zeetha -- and them. General Khrizhan (the leader of the Jaegers) didn't even hesitate. He admitted that they had stayed loyal to Father for all these years mainly for your sake anyway. He swore loyalty to you on the spot, and vowed that he and his would do everything in their power to help you save the situation.
The battle was the most brutal day of your life. You and Zeetha rode at the head of the massive Jaegerkin army, flying in on board a set of captured Wulfenbach flying ships. The Castle had been overrun by Geisterdamen, and you couldn't tell who was still human and who was Revenant, so everyone had to be presumed an enemy. Some of them, suspicious of what they had seen, gave themselves up to you immediately, recognizing which way the wind was blowing. But most of the ship fought to the death. And that, of course, included the people you cared about most.
The last stand was on the Castle's bridge. Everyone else was busy fighting downstairs, so it was down to the four of you: Zeetha facing off with Father, you with Gil. You and Gil managed to trip each other up, and you both marveled for a moment at the deadly dance of two of the best swordfighters in the world going at it. But brilliant though Zeetha was, she was too honorable for a sneak attack, and so she was caught by surprise when Father pressed a button, launching a spear out of one of the walls and through her heart.
You reacted completely on reflex. You saw the expression on Father's face, and finally understood how utterly lost he was. Somehow, you had always hoped that he and Gil would fight off the Other's influence, fight back and be yours again. But there was nothing human in his triumphant grin of murder. And all those years of training at Bang's hands finally paid off. Before you even knew what you were doing, the dagger was flying out of your hand, and through his throat.
And now it was just you and Gil. You couldn't stop crying, knowing what was to come, but you would be damned before you let him live as one of the Other's creatures. You were evenly matched with the rapier, both of you so well-taught by Zulenna, and the duel seemed to go on forever. But in the end, the fact was that he was a creature under another's control, and you weren't. You sometimes think that that final hesitation on his part was the real Gil fighting back for just a moment. In a way, you hope it wasn't, because you took the moment, and plunged your sword through his heart. And then you let yourself collapse in the middle of the carnage, and simply cried for what seemed like days.
Since then, your job has been to pick up the pieces. If you had shown even the slightest weakness, the chaos would return -- you knew that well. The only way to keep the peace was to keep going, right where Father had left off. You had the Jaegers with you already; you reclaimed the Clank Army two days later, reprogramming their leaders to follow you. The humans on board mostly fell into line quickly, swearing fealty to you, but you knew that some of them were Revenant spies, so you had to sort out who was who. Over the next few months, you put into action some notes Father had left behind, to create the "Revenant Weasels", creatures who could sense Revenants, and reacted violently to them. Using them, you rooted out the remaining Revenants, and put them quickly to a merciful death.
You moved on to expanding the Wulfenbach lands. The disaster on board the Castle had taught you that threats were ever-present, and there was nothing for it but to keep pushing forward. Father may have died, but his project was the right one: to bring everyone together under a single, consistent, benevolent rule. And frankly, that's been easier for you than for him. The Heterodyne name still carries much weight everywhere, and people were more willing to submit to your hand than they ever had been to his. Zulenna has been invaluable in helping you understand the intrigues of the non-Spark nobility, and avoid the dangers implicit there. Even Wooster proved to be a valuable ally, although the shift from being Gil's butler to the English ambassador has sometimes taken him a bit aback.
You continued Father's attempt to establish good relations with Skifander, but it doesn't look like that's going to work. They were supicious enough to begin with. Now, with not just the only outsider they ever knew (your Father) dead, but their princess and ambassador as well, they have rebuffed your advances. Vigorously: your last embassy came back with just one crewman left alive to report on how the rest were cut down.
You've tried to make sure that you don't forget your friends while you are at it. The number one lesson of the tragedy was to treasure your friends and loved ones while you have them, and never be afraid to tell them how you feel. You still curse yourself every day for your initial shyness around Gil, and your lack of faith in his feelings towards you. If you had gotten together sooner, who knows how it would have turned out? Intellectually, you know it might not have been different, but maybe you could have saved them both.
So your project for the past month has been back to Bang's problem. The window for action is closing rapidly: the next "jump" of her lands will begin in just a couple of days, and a month later they will be lost again for another ten years. While you are at it, you are trying to help the Jaegers as well. Their "Life" is slowly running down -- it's a slow process, but you can see them getting gradually weaker (and stupider) over the years. They have served the Heterodynes well, and the bargain was that the Heterodyne family would try to find a way back to their homeworld so they could get more of their "Life" force.
Fortunately, a possible solution both problems presented itself. About a month ago, the Castle of Amagog reappeared, as silently and mysteriously as it had vanished in the first place. A few adventurers began to tackle it, of course, and as far as you can tell they all got themselves quickly killed inside. But as soon as you heard about it, you sealed the area so you could investigate for yourself.
It took a while to get there -- you had to put down a rebellion in the south first -- but you got to the Castle three days ago. You studied it, and sent in a few Jaegers to scout around, before tackling it with a couple of them. It was nasty even by Spark standards, with quite the collection of deathtraps: one of the Jaegers lost an arm on the way in, and the other got picked up by a giant arm and dragged off somewhere. But you made it into the laboratory in the center.
It was surprisingly stark, without the usual chaos of most mad Spark labs. Dominating the room was a great mirror; off to the side were some control knobs that appeared to affect it in some fashion. And in the center was a pedestal with a great crystal in the middle. That was exciting: as you looked at the crystal, the shape of its base, that plugged into the pedestal, matched the gap in the Reality Stabilizer you had gotten from the von Zinzers a couple of years ago. The crystal itself seemed to be full of little clockwork gears, whose linkages ought to fit correctly into the brooch. So you started to fiddle with the crystal, to work it out of its base. And of course, as you did so, you began to hum as you always do when working.
The sensation was indescribable -- sort of like being pulled, or stretched, or twisted. For a moment, everything felt simply wrong. And then you found yourself confronted by the strangest sight. You were no longer alone in the laboratory. There was another girl, who you would guess was a year or two younger than yourself, with a little Clank sitting on her shoulder. And there was yet another woman, who was a dead ringer for yourself, with some kind of rodent sitting on hers. You were utterly befuddled. What had happened here? Had Amagog's device somehow summoned these women across time or space? Who was this woman who looked just like you? And most important, where was the crystal? Suddenly, the pedestal was empty, and the crystal gone.
You were almost ready to scream in frustration, but you didn't have time. Suddenly, the three of you were confronted by a creature, which you knew had to be the "Perfect Construct" of Amagog. You had seen many Constructs over the years (one of them is even your pet), and fought more than a few of the nasty things that wander the Wilderness. But this was beyond all of them, with a hundred eyes and great fangs. It roared, and all of you ran from it, escaping the Castle quickly and scattering into the woods surrounding the Castle.
It took a couple of minutes to get your heart rate down, once you ascertained that the creature hadn't followed you out of the Castle, and then you began to realize that something was wrong. When you had gone inside, you had an entire troop of Jaegers and Clanks stationed outside. Now, there was nothing. There was no sign of a struggle or battle: your soldiers had simply vanished. You don't scare easily any more, after the horrors you've been through, but you were certainly beginning to worry.
You spent a cold night and the entire next day scouting around, trying to understand what had happened. You saw a group of men camped out in the forest, one of whom was clearly Othar Tryggvassen. You started to go to him, but then you saw Theo with him, reminding you that you couldn't count on Othar as an ally any more. Things got stranger as you explored near the clearing in the woods, and found a caravan camped out in it, despite your orders sealing off the area. And stranger still, the man running the caravan was a preposterously overdressed Marcus Payne, the Mayor of Beetleburg. What in heaven's name was he doing here?
Then you saw her, and it began to make a horrible kind of sense. Your exact double was clearly one of the members of the caravan. And then someone came up behind her and began to talk to her -- Zeetha, your saviour when fighting the Revenants. Your dead saviour.
You realized that you had been guilty of making an assumption. You had figured that those other women had been somehow brought into your time and space by the crystal. But perhaps it is the other way around. This isn't your time and place, it is hers. You are the stranger here. This isn't your time; perhaps it isn't even your world at all. The legends of Amagog talked about him traveling to alternate realities, places where people were just a bit different. You may have just proven those legends correct.
This morning, you were continuing to wander through the forest when a Jaeger came up behind you in that infernally silent way that they do, and called you "Mistress". So some things haven't changed, at least -- even on this strange world, the Jaegers serve the Heterodynes, and you specifically. You vaguely remembered him as one of your Jaeger footsoldiers named "Dimo" (if that's short for something, you don't remember it), and that seems correct. You've been ordering him around all morning, and he seems to take orders well; it's good having someone as a known ally, at least.
So now you are trying to understand what to do next. You'll need to find a way home eventually, but first you can't pass up this chance to better understand the nature of Amagog's inventions -- and maybe, to see some of the people you've lost. Zeetha is clearly still alive here, which is lovely -- but what in heaven's name are you and she doing in what looks like a gypsy caravan? Just how different is this place? What happened to the crystal, which you need in order to help Bang save her people? And does this world-shift you experienced somehow point a way to help the Jaegers? If anything, this may prove a blessing in disguise: a world that you can use experimentally to discover the solutions to your problems, before you go home and fix them for real back home...
Summary
You are Baroness Agatha Heterodyne, Empress of all (well, most) of Europa. Your self-imposed role is to enforce the peace, so that no one else has to suffer the sorts of tragedies that you did, losing Father, Gil and everyone else you cared about to the monsters that inhabit your world.Right now, you aren't quite sure where you are, though. This is clearly Europa, and yet nothing is quite right. There is a strange and refreshing freedom in the idea of not being responsible for everyone around you, but you see signs of chaos that must be put right.
In case it isn't obvious, you are not the Agatha from the comic strip Girl Genius. Rather, you are from an alternate history where Baron Klaus von Wulfenbach saved you at an early age from the forces that would have used you, and he raised you as his daughter and heir. Your life was a good one until a few years ago, when the forces of the Other caught up with your family, bringing about the death of both Father and the love of your life, Gil. You have taken up Klaus' mantle, and now rule more effectively than he ever did, commanding both the love and fear of your subjects in equal measure.
Public Info
Personality
You're a true idealist, in the way that only someone who has her heart so completely broken can be. You have seen the heights of happiness, when you were engaged to Gil and the world was still right. Now -- well, now you have to focus on the job of keeping your lands running and peaceful. There are days when it simply overwhelms you, but you just somehow keep going.You have to admit that time has taught you realism -- things don't always work the way you want, and the good guys don't always win. But the ideals keep you going. If you can make things a little more peaceful, and prevent a few people from dying, it's worth the pain and compromises.
Deep down, you sometimes wish you could just leave your responsibilities behind. You can't, of course, but you long for it so much -- the innocence of the girl who is just looking out for herself.
Some People You Know (Agatha Heterodyne, aka The Baroness)
Bill and Barry Heterodyne: The Heterodyne Boys, legendary heroes 20-30 years ago. Bill was your biological father, but you really never knew him. Barry was your beloved uncle and surrogate father when you were a small child, but he too left you. You still wonder what they were really like -- no one ever quite lives up to their legend.
Lucrezia Mongfish: Your mother. Certainly a villainess for most of her life, and certainly a monster at the end. Had she reformed in the middle, or was she simply playing your father? And if so, why? It still chills you when you think about her. Everyone tells you that you look and sound like her. You don't take that as a compliment.
Gilgamesh von Wulfenbach: Your brother, your best friend, and the one true love of your life. When you killed him, it was as if you had run the sword right through your own heart.
Baron Klaus von Wulfenbach: Your father and predecessor as ruler of the vast Wulfenbach holdings, also dead at your hand. You still have nightmares every night, about the sight of the dagger going through his neck, and the life going out of his eyes. What's worse, you know that the equipment to bring him back to life was right there on board the Castle. But he would still have been a Revenant if you'd brought him back. No, he really died the moment the slaver wasps took him. You know you did what was necessary, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Bangladesh DuPree: She was like a big sister to you when growing up, and she's still one of your best friends and advisors. She was trained as a killer, and you have found the need to keep her near you so that you can be her conscience. Father never managed to control her evil side through fear, heaven knows -- she's not afraid of much. But at some level, she knows the difference between right and wrong, and you've managed to move her in a better direction. You kind of worry about giving her the key to saving her people, solely because it would remove your only hold over her -- she might well leave you and go back to her piracy. But taking that sort of risk is what a friend does.
Zulenna Luzhakna: The terror of your younger teen years. Zulenna was one of the "students" held captive on board Castle Wulfenbach, and she always resented the position, but she would never let it show. She was nobility, dammit, and wouldn't let anyone forget it. Especially being surrounded mostly by Sparks -- she was a normal human, so she always played up her nobility as a counter. Only nobles counted in her world: everyone else was superfluous.
That said, she was rather like a sister in her own odd way -- an annoying sister, to be sure, but one who took care of her siblings. She taught both you and Gil to fence, needling you until you could stand up to her for at least a little while. She claimed to be doing it simply to show off her basic superiority, but in retrospect you can see that she was toughening both of you up. She understood, as neither of you did, that the job of the ruler is not a simple or happy one, and you would need to be able to defend yourselves when the time came.
Now, rather to your surprise, she has become one of your closest friends and your most trusted associate. After killing Father and Gil, you found yourself in a terrible vacuum of power and experience, and had little idea of who to trust. But Zulenna had been one of the first people to come over to you when you invaded the Castle: she knew that Father was acting irrationally, and you were doing what you needed to. She had the understanding of power and its application that you needed, as well as the fundamental understanding of the nobility and their intrigues.
She was a bit shocked when you named her your Prime Minister -- she had always conceived her role as being fundamentally in tension with the Wulfenbachs, not working for them. But after thinking about it, she decided that she could do you good: she knew quite well that you needed the help and guidance. And her family had a long association with the Heterodynes: your father and Barry had saved Holfung-Borzoi thirty years ago, and the allegiance ran deep.
And since then, you have become close. She is someone you can talk with frankly -- someone you don't need to either intimidate or flatter, and who isn't shocked by the things you have to do as a ruler. You talk almost every day, and you've come to trust her as one of the few people who you can send off on sensitive diplomatic missions on her own.
Dr. Silas Merlot: Headmaster of Transylvania Polygnostic University. Silas is an affable man and a good friend, at least to you. There are times when you can see a little bitterness underneath, and he is quick to anger when someone crosses him -- he rather conspicuously resents Sparks who brag about their abilities, when he is every bit as smart as they are. Moreso, in many respects: he understands science in a much more intellectual way than the instinctive talent of most Sparks. But in general he is a good and friendly fellow, who loves his role running the University and the respect it brings him. You know that he loves being able to call himself your teacher, basking a bit in your accomplishments.
He is also the world's greatest expert on Amagog and his works. In retrospect, you should have waited and fetched him with you before barging into Castle Amagog: he probably would have helped you avoid make the mistake you did. But he will enjoy hearing about this adventure.
Dr. Hugo Glassvitch: Silas' second-in-command -- a good and kind teacher, although not quite as fiery and clever as Silas.
Dr. Tarsus Beetle: Silas' predecessor, who tried to hide you during your youth in a mistaken (at the time) belief that Father was working for the Other. He was killed by the Geisterdamen before you really knew who he was.
Othar Tryggvassen: A friend, or at least he was for a few years.
When you were 14, Othar managed to sneak onto the ship and kidnap you. You had heard about him for years, in a sort of schizophrenic way. On the one hand, there were the stories people told about him, which made him out to be a hero on the same level as the Heterodyne Boys: brave, clever, witty and lucky. On the other, the was Father grousing about him, making him out to be the most annoying homicidal maniac in the entire Wulfenbach lands. In fact, both proved to be more or less true.
Othar ranted and raved in his distinctive way, going on about how he was terribly sorry for cutting you down in your prime, but he was going to have to kill you now. His mission in life, it transpired, was to kill all Sparks -- Sparks were the cause of all the trouble in the world, and he was going to wipe them out. (Including himself: when he had killed all the other Sparks, he would kill himself, and end the "curse" of Sparkdom.)
But the funny thing was, he didn't kill you. You were scared at first, but it gradually became clear that he really expected you to find some way to escape. Indeed, it seemed like he wanted you to escape. Eventually, you called him on it, and of course he denied that. But he still didn't kill you, and eventually you took your heart in your hands and put the barrel of his gun right to your chest, and dared him to pull the trigger. At which point, he tripped over his own feet, and knocked himself out.
You were beginning to figure out the game at this point. You tied him up, just a little bit, and woke him back up. And then you asked him, point-blank, how many Sparks he actually had killed. He hemmed and hawed, but eventually (in the most operatically melodramatic way) admitted that he hadn't killed any. And then he made a "miraculous escape" from his bonds, and ran off, vowing that he would return to do you in some other time.
You've encountered him many times since, and slowly developed an odd friendship. He respected the Heterodyne Boys, and declared that he would have to kill you last, because you were fundamentally a hero like himself. That was kind of fun, once you got used to the fact that Othar was, basically, insane in a good-hearted sort of way. He's even a useful ally on occasion, although unpredictable enough to be a dangerous one.
Sadly, though, you've fallen out with him in the past year or so. Since you took over the running of the Wulfenbach lands, he stopped looking at you as his "sidekick" or "plucky assistant", and has gotten more serious. And that's only gotten worse since Theo's escape. All your intelligence has said that Theo was gradually poisoning Othar against you, and when a Spark that powerful is opposing you, you have to take that threat seriously. One of these days, you may have to do something about him. And on that day, you will really mourn.
Theopholus DuMedd: Your cousin. Damn him.
Theo was a nephew of Lucrezia Mongfish, your mother, and he was a thoroughly decent boy. Father found and adopted him when he was young, a year or two before he found you, and brought him on board the Castle -- he was the first of the "students", and wound up Head Boy of the school. He walked the line so well: aiding and abetting the mischief that you and Gil would get into, but still serving as the role model for the younger kids. He was a fabulous storyteller, who could charm almost anyone.
But he never quite trusted you after you and Gil were revealed as the Wulfenbach heirs, and you finally broke with him after Father's death. He began to criticize everything you did, as you tried to pick things up and hold it together. The shouting matches were legendary, with him trying to stop you in every way he could. And then, just as you perfected the Revenant Weasels, he ran. He escaped the Castle, fled into the Wilderness, and has been out there ever since, making trouble for you and turning people against you.
And you can't be sure why. That's the hell of it. He claimed that he was simply offended at the way you were doing business, but you really don't do things all that differently from the way Father did. Why is he so offended at you following in Father's footsteps? Is it, as he claims, that he's disappointed in you, the Heterodyne, acting like a Wulfenbach? Or is he actually a Revenant playing the long game, acting normal as he undermines your rule? You honestly don't know. You don't even know which one you would prefer. It would be so much easier, in a way, if he is simply a slave of the Other.
Sleipnir O'Hara: Another of your student-sisters, Sleipnir is the daughter of an Irish clan chief who was being held on the Castle for the usual reasons. She was a lot of fun to grow up with -- the eternal tomboy, excessively self-confident and always seeking to get her hands dirty in the Castle's machinery. Like Theo, she was a minor Spark, not nearly as powerful as yourself or Gil in reality but not shackled by your Spark-suppressors. She never held that over you, though: she was just looking for a compatriot in crime. You wound up roommates for a number of years, and were close friends throughout.
But when Theo left, she escaped with him. You hope she is happy, really: you always could tell that the two of them were meant for each other. But you can't easily forgive her for working against you like they are doing.
Von Pinn: Your teacher, bodyguard and jailer when you were one of the "students" on Castle Wulfenbach. She was created by your mother Lucrezia, and from what little she ever said about it, she had the worst childhood imaginable. She hated you at first, for what you were, a reminder of her monstrous creator. But you eventually convinced her that you weren't Lucrezia, and you warmed to each other.
She is a terrible hybrid, with the strength of a Jaegermonster, the speed and subtlety of a Geisterdamen, and the creativity of a human. She terrified the lot of you with her speed and strength, but mostly with the way that she could convince you that she would simply eat you if you pushed her too hard. In truth, she never could -- it took many years to understand how much she cared about all of you. In a very strange way, she was almost a surrogate mother to you, albeit a pretty sinister one.
When you got to your teens, you were both surprised to discover that you could order her around: apparently, your voice is so much like Lucrezia's that she obeys your commands instinctively. You played with that a little bit, until you realized how deeply she hated it when you do that, a little more each time you did it. You stopped, and have tried to avoid it ever since.
That was the worst blow when Theo and Sleipnir left -- Von Pinn left with them. She left a note saying that she couldn't hold them back any longer, and her duty was still to safeguard them. But it still felt like a slap in the face to you. There is no chance that she is a Revenant: she's scarcely even human. This was a deliberate decision on her part; it's hard not to take it as a statement that you are somehow becoming your mother, which is a horrifying idea. And for all that she scared you, you miss her terribly. Maybe even more than Gil, in a way -- she's still alive, but you haven't seen her in a year.
Z: His full name is Zami Yahya Ahmad ibn Suliman al-Sinhaji, and you sometimes use it with him just to show him that you can, and to show respect. But he always introduces himself as just Z (claiming that the infidels can't pronounce his name correctly), and you think of him that way. He is the son of the Iron Sheik, ruler of all of Persia.
As with Zulenna, Z rallied to you early, and has stood by you in the hard days. You released him as a captive not long after, but you were pleased when his father followed your hints to appoint him as ambassador. His father is probably your closest powerful ally, and you have worked hard to repair relations that were strained in Father's time. He is perhaps the most fundamentally sensible person you know, and has become almost as close an advisor as Zulenna is.
Dimo: A minor Jaeger soldier in your world, as far as you know. (You've only encountered him once or twice.) Here, he appears somehow feral: clearly not a soldier, and oddly sharper than most Jaegers you have known. But he calls you "Mistress", so he clearly knows who you are and understands that he is supposed to serve you. Of course, Jaegers are unpredictable servants: gleefully violent creatures, although neither evil nor malicious. Still, given clear orders, they are good to have at one's back.
General Khrizhan: Leader of the Jaegers, at least on your world. Khrizhan is a big Jaeger, known as the "Hatless" because of his rank. (Jaegers have a thing about hats.) He has been one of the Heterodynes' most loyal servants for hundreds of years.
Jenka: Father's favorite Jaeger agent, Jenka is smarter and more dangerous than any other Jaeger you know. Most of them are goofballs by now -- the slow erosion of "Life" has made them gradually stupider. But Jenka has shepherded hers somehow, and remains as deadly as she was when the Jaegers first joined the Heterodynes 200 years ago. But there is something more about her -- her obedience to you has always been a bit more thoughtful, and less reflexive, than that of the rest of her Kin. And for whatever reason, you've always gotten the feeling that she doesn't quite trust you. Is it simply more resentment of your mother, or is there more to it than that?
Krosp: Your beloved pet cat, "Emperor Krosp I" was bred to be the King of Cats. His creator, Dr. Vapnoople, was a minor Spark working for Father, who had the clever idea that cats could make the ideal operatives -- sneaking into places and conducting espionage, spying, and suchlike. Of course, that was an incredibly stupid idea -- cats have no attention span to speak of, so they make terrible spies. Father ordered Krosp destroyed, but you begged him to relent.
So you adopted Krosp, and have had him as your pet ever since. He's a strange pet, of course: he talks, and is frankly smarter than many of the people you know, if a tad cynical. He's your advisor of last resort: you tell him the things that you can't even talk to Zulenna about. And frankly, he's fun to scritch.
Omar and Moloch von Zinzer: A sergeant and captain in your army, respectively. They are the last direct descendants of Amagog, and traded the partial Reality Stabilizer in exchange for steady work. Omar can be a vicious bastard, which is what has held him back. Moloch is a bit more scheming, and dangerous in his own way, but a bit more decent than his brother.
Marcus Payne: A minor Spark who is the current Mayor of Beetleburg. You have no idea what he is doing here, especially wearing that preposterously loud outfit.
Ardsley Wooster: Gil's sometime butler, a friend who he brought back with him from Paris. You weren't as close to Wooster as Gil was (although he does make a truly spectacular cup of tea), but he seemed level-headed enough. After the disaster on the Castle, after you had determined that he wasn't a Revenant, you offered him a position as your liaison to England, his native land. He seemed a bit startled by that, but has taken to the position well. England is a strange place: an undersea Kingdom ruled by the immortal Queen Elizabeth. Having a native who Gil trusted to act as your associate there has been helpful.
Zeetha: Gil's cousin from the Hidden City of Skifander, who helped you reclaim Castle Wulfenbach from your possessed father and fiancee. Zeetha was a truly extraordinary swordswoman, the only person you ever saw battle Father to a standstill at hand-to-hand combat. But his command of the hidden weapons of the Castle sealed her fate. She deserved better, from what you saw of her.
Female Spark (from Original) (Status: In Game)
Plots:
Crisis of Infinite Agathas (Infinite Agathas)
People of the Mirror-World (Mirror-World)
Many Jaegers (Many Jaegers)
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.
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.
Historical Background
The following were notes while the character was evolving. They do not necessarily represent the way it came out.
(Virtually all of the following has been superceded by later rewriting, to better suit the needs of the plot web; it is preserved only for historical interest. See Mirror-World for the more-accurate version of the history of the Mirror World. Also, note that this character was named Mirror-Agatha in the original wiki, and many references to that still remain.)
An alternate version of Agatha, from a nearby parallel dimension. In this world, Agatha was adopted and raised by Klaus when her father disappeared, rather than by Punch and Judy. Specifically, when Beetle took her in, the Geisterdamen got wind of it, and attacked a few months later. Adam, Lilith and Beetle were all killed, and Klaus was alerted to the fact that the Geisterdamen were servants of the Other. He put them down, destroying Sturmhalten in the process, but knew that some of them had melted into the Wilderness to continue their work. Klaus has been kind to her, treating her entirely as his own child, as a sibling to Gil.
Eighteen months ago, Klaus and Gil were attacked by slaver wasps and stung, leaving Agatha to the most difficult task of her life. In a pitched Spark against Spark battle, she killed them both. She then took on Klaus' mantle, becoming Baroness Wulfenbach. As the heir to both Wulfenbach and Heterodyne, her power over Europe has grown greatly -- she is far more powerful than Klaus was, even at his peak. But she was scarred by the events, and has never really forgiven herself for killing the two people she loved most in the world. Her heart is in the right place, and she sincerely believes herself to be the good guy still, but she is terribly lonely.
Two months ago, she was exploring this castle, and found the Mirror of Amagog, the dimension-travelling device, just as Agatha activated it in this world. She was briefly disoriented, then moreso when she found her guards gone, and she was instead confronted with her apparent twin (actually Helen), along with Mell and Artie. She and Helen started to argue a bit, but they were both scared off when Sarah showed up as a large monster.
She wandered the countryside in confusion for weeks. Initially she failed to understand why no one knew who she was. When she found that Klaus and Gil were still alive, she thought she had traveled in time. Eventually, she figured out that she was in a parallel reality, and that she had a chance to be reunited with her father and brother. But getting onto the Castle isn't simple, so it took her until recently to hook up with them.
She should be written to be torn about going home. Part of her wants to stay here, to be with Klaus and Gil; part of her feels a deep responsibility to her people back on her world.
[This page] has Lilith describing what would have happened to Agatha if not for the locket. Of course, something much like this did happen in Mirror-Agatha's world. Use this as fodder for her history. Maybe her version of the locket failed, or was lost? She became conspicuous, was nearly killed by the peasantry, and that's how she came to her Klaus' attention? And what became of her world's Adam and Lilith?
Her feelings towards Gil should probably be very complex. On her world, Klaus was probably setting the two of them up to be wed eventually, formally uniting the two great households. But she was raised with Gil enough to think of him as a brother more than as a lover. So his passion for Agatha should confuse the heck out of her. She may want to have had a relationship with someone else's counterpart on her world. (Who? Lars? Othar? In general, the mirror-universe versions of many of these characters should be similar, but different in critical ways.)
Her raw power matches that of Agatha. She is much better-trained, but somewhat less sure of herself on a moral level. This should be factored in when calculating their power levels.
Current theory is that she encounters Gil as the game is beginning. I'd like to do a little set-piece for game start, and it should begin as she finds him.
Amount of Character Potential: Excellent (My personal favorite of the non-canon characters. Tricky to write and play, but enormous potential for roleplay, and lots of plot possibilities.)