Character: Dr. Helen Narbon, Gentlewoman Adventurer

Character Sheet (Dr. Helen Narbon, Gentlewoman Adventurer)

Combat Value: 4

You are Helen Narbon, Gentlewoman Adventurer. And even by your refined experiences of strange travels, this excursion is most curious.

In former days, you thought of yourself merely as "Helen Narbon, Gentlewoman Mad Scientist", and indeed that title still applies. You ply your trade of Evil Science whenever possible, and pride yourself on your many accomplishments. Why, your most recent adventure was quite remarkable, involving numerous brain transplants, the somewhat accidental overthrow of the fish-men of Venus by your maidservant Mell, and the development of a delightfully mature relationship between yourself, your statistician Mr. Davenport, and the alien mad scientist Dr. Pim, who currently resides in Mell's body. Together in your laboratory on the Moon, you have been quite enjoying yourselves.

Your latest adventure was not initiated by you, however. It began some weeks ago, when you were experimenting with your latest device, the Parallel Transmigrator. Having previously determined that the force of gravity could be overcome by suitable application of Electricity, you have been hypothesizing that the same may be true of the bounds of reality itself. Specifically, the combination of Electricity and Vibration seemed to hold much potential to reveal other realms entirely. However, even as you were activating your device, a portal between realities opened, and a reality-traveler came through! You were pleased to find that it was a gerbil -- the cutest of all species, and surely the one likeliest to conquer reality were mankind not to get there first.

He seemed unsurprised to see you, until you began to converse: he knew your name, and likewise seemed familiar with Mell and Mr. Davenport (although he displayed an unseemly familiarity for a newcomer to your group, calling Mr. Davenport "Dave" before even being properly introduced). However, on further conversation it quickly because clear that he was familiar with some other variant of yourselves -- whilst he appeared to know you, his understanding was of a woman of quite another time and place.

This was remarkable, and delightful -- confirmation of your theories! Here was a gerbil from a Parallel Reality, and one close to your own, at that! To your great pleasure, it transpired that the person who had beaten you to the fording of reality's river was none other than yourself, in that parallel. Being second to the mark is disappointing, but less so to lose only to yourself.

Your new gerbil friend explained that his name was "Artie", and that he had been a creation of his own world's Helen Narbon, the prototype of a possible race of superintelligent gerbils. She, like yourself, was an Evil Mad Scientist of no small talent -- he was only one of her numerous creations. She too had been experimenting with the bounds of reality, but had only managed to open the smallest window between them. So, in the guise of having him over for tea one afternoon, she had activated her device and cast him through it, to see where he might wind up. Clearly, she was a woman after your own heart.

Mr. Gerbil was a bit distraught at his inadvertant adventures -- he explained that he was currently a student, learning law, philosophy, science and a variety of other disciplines. His objective was to learn everything he could about mankind, in order to better them. Personally, you were of the opinion that the best way to better mankind would be through the science of genetics, but you sympathized with his goal: surely, mankind could be improved. His distress was due to the timing: he was nearing the beginning of his next semester of classes, and needed to get back.

Well, if your counterpart on his world could send him here, surely you could send him back! You set about to extend your device so that it could analyze his own vibrations, and open a sufficient portal. You spent the next two weeks working on that, while spending long hours chatting with Mr. Gerbil about his world. This seemed much like your own, but somewhat forward in time. He came from perhaps a century ahead of yourself, but little seemed truly different -- the world was still concerned largely with love, politics, war and Giant Robots. Mad science, it seems, is universal.

Eventually, you finished creating the device, and prepared to send Mr. Gerbil home. But when you activated it, there was a most surprising power surge, and the portal opened far larger than you had intended, drawing not only Mr. Gerbil but yourself through it.

The tableau that you faced was quite remarkable, as you found yourself in a laboratory of apparent antiquity. Before you and Mr. Gerbil was another woman who looked most like yourself -- his world's Helen Narbon, you surmised -- as well as a girl who you didn't recognize, and the cutest little robot you had ever encountered. You began to introduce yourself, when a terrible monster appeared and began to roar at you. It was quite hideous, with a hundred eyes and enormous tusks -- even uglier than your lover Dr. Pim in his native Venusian form -- and you will admit that you briefly lost your composure, running from the creature even as the rest did so.

A few minutes later, out in the woods outside, you regained your calm, and found yourself rather peeved at Mr. Gerbil. Surely, this did not much resemble the fantastic future-world he had described! Rather, it was almost medieval in nature! He was at pains to explain that this was not his world, and that he was equally at sea as yourself.

You began to make your way through the forest, and quickly realized that it was far from deserted. Less than an hour later, you happened upon a campsite, and there found your first associates in this world. The leader, it transpired, was quite the typical Hero: tall, strong, and rather dimwitted and manipulable. He introduced himself as Mr. Othar Tryggvassen, a Gentleman Adventurer. Well, you understand adventure quite as well as the next lady, and introduced yourself accordingly. You did not care to explain that your relations with Heroes have typically not been friendly, in the interests of utilizing his skills to best effect.

There was a period of some confusion, as Mr. Tryggvassen and his associate appeared to know you, and persisted in calling you "Agatha". You eventually determined that they believed you to be a Miss Agatha Heterodyne, who was a mad scientist of this world. From their descriptions, it became clear that she and you were identical in appearance. Obviously, she was your counterpart here, the woman who you had seen in the laboratory. So it was true -- people on different realities have precise counterparts from world to world! This was delightful, and you explained to them that you were not their Miss Heterodyne, but were her equivalent from another Reality.

Mr. Tryggvassen introduced his comrade as Mr. Moloch von Zinzer (a soldier who was traveling with him); he mentioned that they also had another sidekick by the name of "Theo", who was away at the time. You discussed your current plight with them, and your lack of a proper place to stay while you researched your situation. Mr. von Zinzer made an inappropriate comment about you staying with them, and you explained that a lady could not stay in the tent of a gentleman in that way.

They then suggested that you seek out Miss Heterodyne's current place of lodging, a nearby Circus with which she was traveling under the name of "Agatha Clay". You didn't quite understand the reason for her imposture, but Mr. von Zinzer explained that it was of the utmost importance that she keep the Heterodyne name quiet: apparently she was a person of some importance on this world, moving in secret for safety. This was turning into quite an adventure, indeed!

While heading for the Circus, you ran into a most curious creature, who called himself "Oggie". He addressed you as "Mistress", so you took an immediate liking to him. As far as you have been able to determine, he is a "Jaegermonster": he and his race are sworn to the service of this Heterodyne girl. You found yourself appreciating this world more.

Despite your misgivings about a Circus being a rather improper place for a lady, you sought it out in a nearby clearing, and were welcomed by the people there as if you were indeed their Miss Clay. They were puzzled by your clothing, though, and insisted that you change into their quaint country garb. You have been staying with the for the past two days, and in the meantime have been learning much about this world.

In later meetings with Mr. Tryggvassen out in the forest, he explained the terrible state of this Reality. In it, all of Europe has been conquered by a wicked Baron Klaus von Wulfenbach; working with his ne'er-do-well son Gilgamesh, the have laid their booted heel across land after land. Really, it all sounds quite delightful to you, but you maintained an air of seriousness, since Mr. Tryggvassen seemed quite intense about the horror of it. His goal in life was to bring about the end of their reign, as well as doing in all of what he described as "Sparks", this Reality's version of mad scientist. Like all heroes, he is charmingly sincere, if a bit deluded. And he should do well in the role of most men: to deal with poison darts and rampaging monsters and suchlike, and to offer up their bodies to Science when necessary.

But you offerred to help him in his goal. By now, you have significant experience in the Art and Science of Brain Transplantation: indeed, you have brought peace to the world of Mars, and -- well, something to the world of Venus -- using this Science. So you proposed a simple solution -- if he can bring you one of these Wulfenbachs, you can switch their brains, and he can take over their Empire. He, of course, fancies himself as freeing all of the people at that point, but where is the fun in that? No, that's why you use your womanly charms: so that the silly dashing Hero will do the right thing, and put you on this world's throne instead. You'll rule in a kindly but vigorous manner, with no more fatalities among the populace than is strictly necessary in the interest of Science. And Entertainment.

In the meantime, you have been busying yourself learning more about this world and Miss Heterodyne/Clay's place in it. You still haven't precisely figured out why she is running, but it is clear that the Baron von Wulfenbach is the one who is chasing her. All the more reason to bring his empire under better control. You assume that there are limits to the similarities between you. Surely, there aren't parallels in all respects, given how curious your own history is. (For instance, you recently discovered that your mother, a great Mad Scientist in her own right, had traveled to another world, where she became known as a Goddess to a race of fierce Amazonian women. Such a tale is certainly too peculiar to happen on multiple worlds!)

And you are getting to know the people in the Circus, as well as the others nearby. You are pleased to find more who are clearly cognates to your associates from home, confirming the nature of Reality and giving you a quick boost in knowing how to relate to them. You may assist some of them in their own travails, while you are working on your own plans.

While you are at it, you certainly need to understand more about how you came here. Clearly one of this world's Mad Scientists had some device for crossing between the realms of Parallel Realities. Who was it? You are rapidly advancing your own understanding, and would surely lovely to have Deep Scientific Conversation with him or her (or it).

Summary

You are Helen Narbon, Gentlewoman Adventurer, a proper Evil Lady Mad Scientist of Her Majesty Victoria's court. You have traveled extensively through the world and indeed, even the heavens in search of interesting experiments. But your current wanderings are among the strangest to date -- you have found yourself (in the company of a lively and most intelligent gerbil named Artie) in a parallel reality. It is quite exciting, especially given all of the opportunities you have found for improving the world through Mad Science.

Helen is not from Girl Genius; instead, she is the protagonist of the comic strip [Narbonic], the other story about a cute blonde mad scientist with a little creation who rides around on her shoulder and a psychotic mother who likes to conquer things. She happens to be a dead ringer for Agatha -- this will be highly relevant, so don't tell people who you are playing. You are specifically playing the Victorian version of Helen, as seen in the Narbonic Sunday Strips, starting [here].

Public Info

Personality

You like to consider yourself calm and composed most of the time: little ever surprises you too much, and everything presents opportunities. Yes, there are always setbacks when you get yourself into an adventure, but that's when you get to try new things! Nothing ever truly angers you -- anger isn't a proper emotion for a Victorian Gentlewoman -- but you will admit minor episodes of pique when people don't do what they are supposed to.

The search for knowledge drives you on, as does the quest to make peoples' lives better. Of course, your idea of "better" doesn't always match everyone elses'...

Some People You Know (Dr. Helen Narbon, Gentlewoman Adventurer)

Mr. Othar Tryggvassen: A Hero in the classic mold, with great bombast and a delightful lack of wisdom. You are planning to manipulate him, to help you take over this reality. Surely a pastoral, medieval place like this can't be hard to conquer? With Othar's brain in some useful body, you should be able to effect change quickly. He surely can't be hard to manipulate, through a combination of carefully constructed reason and perhaps the occasional cute simper.

Mr. Moloch von Zinzer: One of Othar's fellow travelers. A rough man -- he says that he is a soldier, and that doesn't really surprise you. Dangerously unpredictable.

Oggie: A Jaegermonster who does -- well, apparently everything you command. He's rather puppylike, and despite the large horns you have developed quite a fondness for him.

Dimo and Maxim: Oggie's associates, who you haven't gotten to know as well yet.

Mr. Artie Gerbil: The nearest thing you have to an actual friend in this place, you have only known Mr. Gerbil a few weeks longer than the rest, but that is long enough to have a fair understanding of him. He has somewhat Heroic tendencies himself, but is used to being part of Mad Science. He continues to insist that the two of you should be making your way back home, and you are not unsympathetic to the idea, but you would certainly prefer to engage in a bit of creative conquest first. The interests of Mad Science must be served, after all. And surely he has no sympathy for the Evil Baron, does he? The people must be freed.

One of the most interesting things about Mr. Gerbil is that he is a shape-shifter! He has an alternate form, of a rather handsome Nubian man. Your counterpart on his world clearly has fine taste in servants. Sadly, his tastes in romance are a bit unnatural -- he prefers the company of other men. Pity.

Mr. Silas Merlot: Clearly this world's counterpart to your Statistician (and lover) Mr. David Davenport -- a brilliant but frustrated technician who does not quite possess the talent of Mad Science. This version seems a bit grumpier than yours is, though. He is part of the circle that will be assisting with the plan to overthrow the Wulfenbachs.

Dr. Hugo Glassvitch: Another Nubian fellow, although not quite so handsome a one as Mr. Gerbil. Dr. Glassvitch will also be assisting in your plan.

Master Payne and Countess Marie: The owners and leaders of the Circus you have been staying with, you gather that they took in Miss Heterodyne (who they know as Miss Clay), not realizing that she was a Scientist herself. They seem to be decent people, but are currently distressed by some sort of problem involving members of their troupe who have been arrested. Well -- you have no great fondness for figures of authority (unless they are under your own control), so you hope you may assist them with their difficulties.

"Emperor" Krosp: From the voice and manner, apparently this world's counterpart to your friend Dr. Pim, the Evil Venusian Scientist. (Who was originally a sort of octopus-creature before being put into your maidservant's body.) Except in this world, he is a cat. Still, you know Pim well enough to know that his counterpart would be sympathetic to a plan to put the world under your benign rule. And while his feline body may not be of much use, that's easy enough to fix, given the appropriate tools.

Zeetha: Except for the green hair, she is the spitting image of your maidservant and apprentice Mell Kelly, who is now in the body of the Fish-King of Venus, undoubtedly off conquering distant worlds. She does not seem to share Mell's fondness for guns, but otherwise seems a similar force of destruction. Your relationship with her is somewhat unclear, however. You think of her as your maid, but she seems to think that you are her student, and she spent this morning abusing you in most unladylike ways, apparently trying to engage you in physical combat! Well! That simply won't do, and you'll have to make that clear to her -- it just isn't appropriate. That said, her fondness for violence as a general precept of life is comfortingly like your own Mell.

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Female Spark (from Narbonic) (Status: In Game)

Plots:
Crisis of Infinite Agathas (Infinite Agathas)
The Brain Transfer (Brain Transfer)
The Circus Arrested (Circus Arrested)
Amagog's Legacy (Legacy)

Abilities and Disabilities

Brain Transplant (Brain Transplant) -- While it was originally intended as simply an adjunct to your work in revivification (to put new brains in old bodies), you have developed quite the knack for moving brains around. And it's such fun to see how they react!

Given ten minutes, one Point, and two willing (or subdued and unconscious) subjects, you can exchange their brains. The players exchange insignia buttons (and costume pieces if possible), to represent the fact that they are in each others' bodies. You can, of course, switch them back later.

You are required to keep both characters alive -- that's simply a matter of politeness, not to mention conservation. (Waste not, want not -- you never know who is going to be useful down the line.)

Antigravity Science (Antigravity Science) -- In the course of your researches into revivification, you accidentally invented the Lunar Gondola, your flying machine. The principles are fairly simple, really, although it does require quite a bit of electricity to reverse the gravity polarity of an object.

Revivification (Revivification) -- You have experience with Revivification: the science of bringing back the dead. How hard that is depends on just how dead the body in question is. But it always calls for a lot of electricity.

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Historical Background

The following were notes while the character was evolving. They do not necessarily represent the way it came out.

The living incarnation of "Evil, but Cute".

This is (probably) the Victorian version of Helen, from the Narbonic Sunday strips. In the course of her adventures in outer space, Professor Lupin Madblood was trying to construct and inter-dimensional travel device. She was examining it, when the main Helen activated her such device, and Agatha activated the Mirror. She, along with Artie and Mell, was sucked into the Agatha-verse. They were immediately confronted with Mirror-Agatha, and they began to have something of a row, when Sarah appeared and drove them all out of the castle. Helen stumbled across the Circus, who were expecting Agatha to return; her slightly odd clothes aside, they assumed that she was Agatha.

Since then, she has been living and traveling with the Circus, and having quite a bit of fun with it. She finds the whole thing a bit scandalous, but doesn't mind that now that she's getting used to it. She has also been finding that invention comes just a bit more naturally to her now. She occasionally scares the heck out of the Circus members, who had grown accustomed to Agatha being the morally best of them -- Helen, while much like Agatha, is self-professedly Evil, albeit in a nice sort of way. The lure of power in this world is slowly corrupting her, and she's enjoying the heck out of it.

Unlike Agatha and Mirror-Agatha, she does not hum when inventing, since she wasn't raised by Barry. (Her mother was her world's equivalent of Lucrezia Mongfish, though.) This actually makes her just a tad less powerful than they are.

Note that Helen's byline is the same as Othar's. This suggests the very scary possibility of the two of them teaming up. He is exactly the kind of guy who she is talented at manipulating, and she would have no compunctions about doing so.

Darker: I'm a bit hesitant to mention this, because the idea is both clever and you clearly like it, but one of the things you wanted me for was sanity checks, so: the whole Helen-is-alternate-Agatha thing, while quite clever, doesn't do much for me. Were I playing the game, it'd be in large part because I love the universe and want to go have fun in it; original characters from that universe would be no problem, but yanking in folks from other comics creates (to me) a similar sort of feeling to...well, kinda like when a long joke is told at a party and you're one of the few people who don't understand the punchline - it's not bad, but it's a bit of a letdown. (I've read some Narbonic, but not for years.) Justin: a fair criticism, and I'll want to see what comes out of the casting sheets, whether there are enough players who are likely to get it. It arises from the fact that the two worlds are so similar and intertwined (Shaenon Garrity, the author of Narbonic, has done work on GG); the result is that Narbonic has several characters who just fit so well, personality-wise, and are stronger characters than many of those available in GG itself. The question is mainly whether I can fit them into the plot web effectively enough. I believe the answer is yes -- the Narbonic characters are doing about as well as most of the GG-universe ones -- but I'm leaving the question open for a few more weeks as things shape up. I'm definitely sensitive to "fit" here: for instance, that's why Dave (the other main character from Narbonic) isn't currently written in -- I don't see him working in this scenario.

Arnis (12/4/06): Having never read Narbonic (in fact, I've never even heard of it before looking at this wiki), I can't say these guys are particularly compelling to me, either. However, I'll note that part of the reason to have crossovers is to have something different in the game. If the characters fit in too well, if they don't provide sufficient contrast, then they don't bring anything to the game that couldn't be done as easily otherwise.

Helen originally thought of herself as a "Gentlewoman Mad Scientist"; only after the excursions in outer space did she begin to think of herself as a Gentlewoman Adventurer.

She is quite frank in her opinion that the purpose of men is to take the consequences of her clever inventions. After all, she can't be subjected to strange electrical fields, poison darts, bizarre creatures and so on. That's what the gentlemen are for. And the best part is, there are always more of them to draw upon!

She was originally attempting revivification via electrical fields. She didn't get it quite right, and instead invented antigravity, in the form of her patented Lunar Gondola. She does know how to command antigravity, and if she tries and it seems suitable to the plot, she should be allowed to build flying devices using it. She also should be allowed to attempt revivification again (she did eventually succeed in it), and if it suits the plot, should be able to do it. The thing she definitely knows how to do it brain transplants.

As with the Modern Helen, Victorian Helen has a curious fascination with gerbils. Indeed, this is part of why she accepts Artie at face value when he plops down in her lap.

She misses her maidservant Mell, who deals with all the important tasks around the house: making tea, building strange apparati, shooting out-of-control giant Gerbils, and so on. But she has discovered that Mell has a counterpart in this world, in the form of Zeetha. While she does not appear to share Mell's fondness for guns per se, there is a comparable weakness for weaponry as a general precept of life. She therefore is treating Zeetha as her maid, and this is introducing a certain tension into their relationship. However, she still shares a common interest in creative violence as a good way of life.

Okay -- so let's assert that everyone has a cognate. This means that the equivalent of Professor Lupin Madblood is probably Silas. Of course, she has in the past referred to Madblood as "an overblown tinkerer with no more scientific genius than the roast-potato man", but he does have his moments. She does think Silas would look much better with a proper beard, though.

Note that Helen is greatly attracted to genius, especially evil genius. (She doesn't think much of Gil and Klaus, because Othar has made them out to be simple tyrants, without nearly the creativity that a true world conqueror should have. They don't really sound like terrible sorts, but they require a proper woman's touch, helping them understand how to correctly terrorize the masses. She does recognize that Othar is the foolish hero type, and would not respond appropriately should he realize that her own credentials of evil genius are, in fact, impeccable. But she is quite experienced at telling such lovely fools what they want to hear.)

And the counterpart for her Statistician Dave Davenport is, of course, Krosp. This implies, of course, that he is an assistant whose purpose is to aid her as necessary, including sacrificing parts of his body to science when appropriate. Or, perhaps even worse, Krosp could be the cognate of the evil conquering Venusian Pim -- their voices are alike. Of course, the feline body isn't much use, but there are always ways to deal with that. In which case, Silas might be the Dave counterpart -- that might be more appropriate, and more annoying to Silas.

I am reminded, upon rereading, just how close the Victorian Helen is to Agatha. We just have to mention in her sheet that her mother traveled to another world (Mars), where she was regarded as a goddess by a race of alien amazons. Surely, no cognate could match her life story that closely!

Taking stock of the end of the Victorian Narbonic story: Madblood is trapped on Mars as the love-slave of a race of shape-shifters. (Note that Helen is experienced with shape-shifters!) Mell is in the body of the Hapax Legomenon, god-emperor of Venus, and it seems likely that she is off conquering the rest of the galaxy. The alien mad-scientist squid-thing Dr. Pim is in Mell's body, and she and Helen are sharing a mature relationship with Mr. Davenport. The did eventually get to the moon; we will posit that they set up a base there, and have been experimenting with all forms of mad science since.

Amount of Character Potential: Good (A good character, and we do have a fair number of Narbonic fans, but still not well enough tied in. Still an open question.)