Characters In Game: Gil Sleipnir Theo Z Zulenna
All Characters: Gil Hezekiah Itto Nick Sleipnir Theo Z Zulenna
The following were notes made while this was in development. They do not necessarily represent the final state of the thing.
There is no real name, but this is my nickname for Agatha's "Scoobies" on board the Castle. They are mostly the children of noble Spark families in the Wulfenbach Lands, but that's not certain. As showed on [this page], even Gil was a member of the group for some time, and no one knew who he was. A rule among the group is that you never really know each other. Nonetheless, they are each others' peer group and best friends by necessity, and work well together.
The group have been raised and are cared for by Von Pinn, and they all care for her in their way. Nonetheless, they are all [utterly terrified of her].
There are a whole bunch of small kids along with the group, and the older members take care of the younger. But the older ones are really who we are interested in for purposes of the game.
The group have [relatively free run] of the Castle, and routinely get themselves into trouble. However, when true danger threatens, they [send the kids away]. Of course, that just makes them more interested to [dive into the middle of it].
Well-informed though they try to be, it's clear that there is [a lot they don't know] about what's going on in the Castle.
They collectively stand to defy Klaus to save her (v3, p117). From Klaus' reaction, it's clear that this is partly a reaction to her Spark, not just to her as a person.
On (v5, p100), Gil notes that the "students" have all "run off or been shipped back home". I think that's our launching-point. Sometime before game time, some of them (including Theo) escaped the Castle, and others (probably including Zulenna) were returned home. I believe the latter probably received an icy reception, worse when she began to break through, and went looking for the former. She knew where they were heading, and set out to intercept them there. Of course, this implies that Gil has no idea they're here, and should be fairly surprised when he runs into them.
Given that the comic focuses on Agatha, that Agatha gets along with most of the Hostage Squad famously, that the familial ties / obligations of the Hostage Squad are mostly offscreen, and that when they last saw Agatha they were defying the Baron, there may be a natural tendency for players to throw in entirely with Agatha over Klaus. This isn't necessarily a problem, but I think the balancing-act situation is more interesting...this dynamic can be tweaked depending on how Hostage Squad character sheets are written. --Darker Justin: good point. In general, one of the problems that we need to deal with is the tendency for everyone to be against Klaus. It's a tricky balancing act: he has to be separated from the Castle and his toys to some degree, simply to keep him from being too abusively powerful, but we have to make sure that that doesn't weaken him too much.