Character: Sarah, aka The Perfect Construct

Character Sheet (Sarah, aka The Perfect Construct)

Combat Value: Variable! See a GM for your effective combat score based on the form you are in. Note that your form affects your physical strength -- you are not trained in combat, so you may be less effective than the person who you are mimicing.

You are The Perfect Construct of Amagog. He used to call you "Sarah" -- he thought of you as female for some reason, but gender was really always a non-sequiteur for you. You miss him terribly.

The Master called himself "Amagog" -- "Lover of Gog", who he said was the legendary first Spark. That's what he was, a Spark, one of the brilliant people who made up a tiny fraction of those in the outside world. He was born with the name "Friedherich von Zinzer", but by the time he made you, he no longer used that name; he always said that that was one part of the past that he didn't care about. He was already old by the time you were made, and he sometimes told you stories about his earlier days -- how he had worked for the great Storm King, but was unappreciated there; how he built his Castle, where he could pursue his explorations of time and space freely; how he had married a village girl, had a son named Gregor, and been happy for time until she died and the boy ran off. Now, he was simply a scientist, learning everything he possibly could about the nature of reality.

He always called you his greatest achievement, though, and you were proud of that. Oh, there were many Constructs out there -- practically a dime a dozen. But you were the only true shape-shifter. He liked to make fun of the other attempts to do that, deriding them as "simply pushing matter around". You were different, with an instinctive sense of the shape of reality, and the ability to draw your shape from all the possible forms you could take. It was limited only by your experience: you could imitate any creature you had seen for long enough, but you've never been any good at inventing things completely from your imagination.

For about ten years, you lived with him as he taught you about your powers and the outside world. In the beginning, you were simply a formless blob; it took about five to get to the point where you could imitate his form and converse intelligently with him. That time with him was probably the best of your life -- an innocent time, with the person you most cared about.

In the end, he didn't die -- he simply went away. The local peasants had never liked him, and less so after they caught wind of you up there. They never understood what you were, but he had mentioned his "Perfect Construct" when getting supplies, and they saw you in a variety of your forms. In the end, that was what did him in: their fear led them to turn into a mob, complete with torches and pitchforks. They were no threat to him, of course, but he decided that he was no longer going to be able to pursue his studies in peace.

And so he left through his great Mirror. He said he would be going to the world of Cynosure to pursue his studies -- the world between the worlds, where he could examine them to his heart's content. You couldn't come with him, though: your reality-shifting powers would interact poorly with the strange physics of Cynosure. But he provided for you before leaving. He set up a great device that would shift the entire Castle half a step out of conventional reality, rendering it invisible and immaterial to the outside world. You could still come and go thanks to your abilities, but the villagers simply couldn't interact with the Castle any longer. As far as they were concerned, he had taken his Castle -- and his creature -- with him.

You spent a few years continuing to prowl around, but you were more careful, with your Master no longer there to protect you. You had learned that people are fundamentally suspicious of that which they do not understand, so you simply imitated them. You learned caution: that you needed to not just imitate their forms, but learn enough about them to know how to emulate them. But you also learned that most of them were not worth knowing: creatures of suspicion and fear, hatred and paranoia. And so you returned to the Castle, and closeted yourself in there, contenting yourself with using the great Mirror to observe throughout time and space.

That was -- oh, about 200 years ago.

You will admit that you were beginning to get restless, and that you had expected to go out into the world again soon. But rather than doing so at your own time, your hand has been forced by events.

About four months ago, it all began, when the man who you would come to know as Tarsus Beetle came tumbling through the Mirror. He had apparently used the Eye, one of the Master's numerous experimental devices, and one which he had used himself in cases of extreme danger once or twice. The Eye bends reality as necessary to transport the user to the Castle laboratory. It could bend even death itself, pulling the wearer's body across reality while leaving an intact corpse -- useful for fooling people into believing they had killed you.

You watched Beetle from the shadows, as he explored the Castle. You quickly determined that he wasn't like the villagers: no, this was a scientist, possibly even someone you could respect. He even knew of the Master! You watched as he explored the Castle, learning its ins and outs. He was clumsy sometimes, and you worried about that (not enough, as it happened), but you were too curious to stop him. He was quite impressive, really, figuring out from first principles how to use the Mirror, and even deciphering some of the Master's encrypted notes. You will admit that you had some fun playing cat and mouse with him: hiding just outside his sight, close enough that he could sense your presence, but far enough that he could never quite catch up with you. You made him uneasy, and you must admit that you enjoyed that.

But he still wasn't as clever as the Master, and he was clumsy, so you should have seen it coming. One day, about a month ago, he started fiddling with the reality-shifting device that kept the Castle hidden, and broke it. He clearly didn't understand the import of that, but you did -- it meant that the Castle was visible again. And others would be coming soon.

Still, you didn't act hastily. Yes, a variety of adventurers came and braved the Castle's defenses, but none were nearly up to dealing with them. So you bided your time, as Beetle summoned a friend of his, named Silas Merlot, into the Castle. Merlot turned out to be an even greater expert on the Master, and began to make real progress understanding his notes and the devices around the Castle. This was a man you could really respect: someone who revered the Master almost as much as you did, and had devoted his life to understanding his works. But for reasons you still aren't clear on, Beetle disguised himself before summoning Merlot, taking the form of a "Hugo Glassvitch", who was apparently an associate of Merlot's. (Beetle used the Transformator, one of the Master's early prototypes for creating you. It's a primitive device, which changes someone's shape for a very short period of time, but it seems to suffice for him.) And you continued to play with them -- never letting them see you, but always letting them know that something was just out of sight.

You really began to curse your inaction a couple of days later, when a group of adventurers finally succeeded in making their way into the Castle. You had grown overconfident in your defenses, so you didn't think anyone could make it in. But these three not only made it to the laboratory, they stole the Clockwork Crystal -- the main control device that runs the great Mirror. The Crystal is a remarkable device, filled with intricate and miniscule gears that come out the bottom. Without the Crystal, the Mirror can only run on its automatic systems. The Crystal takes music and focuses it into "codes" of reality; without it, it would take a musical instrument of truly remarkable complexity to be able to make the Mirror do anything useful.

And still you sat. You were fascinated by Beetle and Merlot, lurking around the Castle and learning the Master's work. You were beginning to feel uneasy about them -- while they were smart, they weren't necessarily wise -- but you figured the damage had been done. You would clearly need to go out into the world again, but you wanted to do so carefully, so you began to look for an opportunity. That came about three days ago, when you spotted the man "Abner" making his way through the woods. He was clearly alone, so he would make a good person to capture and imitate. You did just that: you took the form of a giant (well, a small giant that you had once seen), captured him, and placed him deep in the bowels of the Castle where Beetle and Merlot wouldn't find or hear him. And you began to question him.

Then the girl came to the laboratory. She broke her way through the remaining undamaged defenses with an unsettling ease, and began to fiddle around with the Mirror. You knew that this was a bad idea, but what were you to do? Of course, she set off the final defense: the one set precisely against someone foolishly playing with that, the Master's most powerful device. He told you, those many years ago, of what it was programmed to do in case of such tampering: it would alter the fool, changing their reality matrix to no longer be a threat. But something went wrong -- you still don't know what. Suddenly, instead of one girl, there were three: two who looked like the original, and one different.

You decided that this was the final straw: things had gotten completely out of control. Angry about this defiling of the Master's greatest work, you shifted into the scariest form you had ever dealt with, that of a terrible forest creature with a hundred eyes and giant tusks, and you scared them out of the Castle again. And while you were at it, you drove Beetle and Merlot out as well. You needed time to think, and they were getting underfoot.

You turned your attention fully to questioning Abner. He was terrified of the giant form, so you changed to the more human form of your Master Amagog, and kept going. He explained that he was a member of a Circus -- a band of traveling performers. They had been traveling through a town called "Middleburg" a couple of weeks ago, when most of them were arrested on trumped-up charges against them, and held for ransom by the local noble. Finally, a few days ago, someone named "Pix" had convinced the guards to let him go and help raise the ransom funds. He had spent the intervening time following the Circus's path, and had tracked them here.

That matched what you had observed outside: this Circus was clearly the people camped in the clearing near the Castle. Very well: Abner would make a suitable identity for you. You gave him food and water, and left him there in the Castle dungeon. You'll probably let him go eventually, but not until you have used this identity to understand the circumstances better.

So you went out among them, disguised as Abner, and have maintained that disguise for the past day or so. It hasn't been simple -- you had to put his descriptions together with the people here, and be able to talk intelligently to them. But rusty though you are, you used to be good at that. And fortunately, all of the people with the Circus are quite distinctive in looks. Their stories matched his, more or less. They have been traveling to find ways to ransom their compatriots, and came here in the hope of finding treasure suitable for such ransom.

You must admit, it's really quite a lot of fun to be out among people again. They are such simple creatures sometimes, and so easily confused by a little shifting. You wouldn't hurt them, of course, but it's really fascinating to experiment with them a little. You almost fancy yourself as being a little like the Master, in the way you can experiment and learn.

And now -- well, the question is, is this your moment? Before he created you, the Master traveled once into the future, and saw much of what might happen. He never spoke directly about it, but he left behind some notes that he had written at the time, which said "Castle reappeared approx. 1 year before. The changing one decides my legacy." Does the "changing one" refer to you? His legacy is certainly great: the Mirror which allows someone to travel anywhere in time or space. But you know so little about the outside world -- how would you decide who was worthy?

Public Info

Personality

You aren't human, of course, so your emotions aren't quite human. But you've come to understand that they aren't that different from you. You are insatiably curious, much like the man who created you. There is really nothing that you fear: with your powers, not much can seriously threaten you. And you've never really understood the human emotion of embarassment: you can mimic it, but you don't really feel it.

All of this has made you more than a little mischievous. Getting out of the Castle again, after all these years, is very freeing, and you are remembering your old fondness for playing with these people. You feel no malice towards them, but confusing them is one of your great joys. You are serious about your responsibilities to your Master, and you wouldn't actually hurt people, but you allow yourself some fun when you can.

Some People You Know (Sarah, aka The Perfect Construct)

Amagog: The Master, Friedherich von Zinzer, long departed to live in the cross-dimensional city of Cynosure. The greatest Spark who ever lived, he created the Castle, the Mirror, and of course yourself.

Dr. Tarsus Beetle: The first invader of the Castle. A bit clumsy, but intelligent enough to figure out how to use the Mirror on his own, which is really rather remarkable. Currently using the Transformator to disguise himself as a "Dr. Hugo Glassvitch", for some reason.

Dr. Silas Merlot: Seemingly a man of pure intellect, who has devoted his life to the study of the Master's work. A friend of Beetle's.

Abner: The man you are imitating currently. Apparently a reasonably decent but ordinary sort of person, who acts as the second-in-command of "Master Payne's Circus of Adventure". Deeply concerned with getting the rest of the members of the Circus out of the captivity they are currently in. (He laughed bitterly when he told you that, looking at his own cell. You feel a bit guilty about that -- if he was fully truthful with you, you may need to help the Circus with their problem, to make up for it.)

Master Marcus Payne: The owner of the Circus, and the "Ringmaster". A master of illusion, according to Abner.

Countess Marie: Payne's wife, who co-owns the Circus. Abner calls her the "den mother", which apparently means that she is responsible for the emotional well-being of the group.

Embi: A little black man, one of the members of the Circus but also one of the men who broke into the Castle laboratory and stole the Clockwork Crystal.

Zeetha: The green-haired woman, who is some sort of great warrior who also performs with the Circus. You gather that Abner is a bit frightened of her.

Agatha Clay: The woman who entered the Castle laboratory and set off the Mirror. At least, you think so -- that incident was strange and confusing, and you aren't sure what happened there at the end. You need to learn more about her. What did she do? Why was she there in the Castle? Who is she?

Artie: A talking gerbil who has been much around Agatha; he is apparently a Construct of some sort, like yourself. The others have said that he arrived a couple of days ago, with Agatha -- does this have something to do with the incident with the Mirror? He has been trying to convince people that Constructs should be treated better. Given your own experiences with peasants with pitchforks, you have to admit some sympathy for this idea.

Krosp: Another talking animal, this one a cat. According to Abner, Krosp is Agatha's pet; so what does that make Artie? Krosp seems quite the commanding figure, and well worth getting to know.

Dimo, Oggie and Maxim: A trio of creatures called "Jaegermonsters". The Master spoke of those back in the old days, and always spoke of them with a tone of regret. He was never completely clear about it, but it seems that he was responsible for bringing them to this world, by accident, when he was doing one of his earliest experiments in cross-dimensional travel. He always said that someday, he would have to make that up to them.

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Neuter Construct (from Original) (Status: In Game)

Plots:
Crisis of Infinite Agathas (Infinite Agathas)
The Construct Rights Movement (Construct Rights)
Amagog's Legacy (Legacy)
The Circus Arrested (Circus Arrested)
The Prophecy (Prophecy)

Bluesheets:
The Castle - Abner (The Castle - Sarah)

Abilities and Disabilities

Shape Shifting (Shape Shifting) -- You are a shape-shifter: that is the essence of what you are and what you do. Your native form is simple protoplasm, but you haven't been in that form in so many years you scarcely remember what it was like.

Your ability works by intuitively analyzing and understanding a creature's reality matrix, and your memory isn't infinite. So you must interact with a creature for at least five minutes before you can take its shape, and you generally can't shift into forms that you last took too long ago: your memory for matrices only goes back a few months.

You cannot shift into non-living forms: the form you take must be living and organic. That aside, you can shift regardless of issues of size -- you take on forms as small as a mouse, or as large as a large Construct, with equal ease.

To shift into the form of a character in the game, see a GM to get the appropriate button. To shift into another form, talk to a GM about whether it is reasonable. You may shift for free once every half-hour; to do so more frequently than that, you must spend one Point.

Omnivore (Omnivore) -- You can, and generally do, eat any and all sorts of organic matter -- the Master created you to be the ultimate omnivore. However, he taught you very strictly not to eat anything sentient, and you try very hard to remember those teachings. You've generally been good, not even eating any of the more animalistic (but slightly intelligent) Constructs that you've come across in the woods around the Castle.

You do have to stop yourself and remember the limits of the form you're currently emulating, though. More than once, your attempts to blend into a town have been foiled when you carelessly stopped and started snacking on the nearest tree or groundhog.

You have a particular preference for well-fed rodents: you keep a selection of them pickled in the Castle's larder.

Castle Knowledge (Castle Knowledge) -- You know the interior of the Castle very, very well. This has three effects:

• You can hide in the hallways. While in the hallways of the Castle (not rooms!), you can lurk back and watch people without being seen.
• You can avoid traps. You may simply ignore anything marked as a Castle Trap. If someone else triggers it, it may still affect you! However, you can get others around traps, too, if you carefully talk them through it (while present).
• You can get into rooms. You can go to a GM and ask to travel to a particular room (by GM code) even if its doorway is not publically accessible, or if it is locked.

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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.

(Note: yes, the Perfect Construct was written to be female. But when casting time came around, I realized that the player balance required her to be male, so I tweaked her to start out playing Abner. She is referred to as female throughout the wiki, though.)

Sarah is a more or less immortal Construct, about 200 years old, from the Golden Age of Sparks about 200 years ago. She is a rough contemporary with the Muses. She is a shapeshifter with broad abilities to imitate whatever she likes, and is The Perfect Construct of the title.

Her creator Amagog created both herself and the dimensional travel device that caused this whole mess, the Mirror of Amagog. He was attacked by villagers about a decade later, though, and moved to Cynosure; she spent the next decade being hunted. She eventually decided that the world was a terrible place, and retreated back to the Castle, which she has haunted ever since, driving away anyone who sought its secrets.

About two months ago, Agatha wandered into the Castle and activated the Mirror, trapping herself in stasis and bringing Mirror-Agatha, Helen, Artie and Mell into this world. Sarah appeared and scared the lot of them off, and initially thought that was that. But she reconsidered, boredom and curiosity intertwining. She wandered out, found the Circus, recognized what it was, and decided to take the form of an exotic beast, allowing herself to be captured for the time being.

Since then, she has been having fun with the Circus. She is slightly unhinged, and takes great joy in messing with everyone's minds. She is more or less Coyote in temperment -- not evil, but dangerously mischievous. When they aren't paying attention, she shifts into other forms and causes mild chaos. She especially has been enjoying taking on the form of Helen/Agatha. Both Artie and Krosp are rather suspicious of her, but they haven't quite twigged to what's going on. So she's especially enjoying messing with them.

Easiest way to tie her into things is to have her impersonating someone else. I'm currently thinking that having her pretending to be, eg, Thundering Engine Woman might work reasonably well. Or maybe Moonsock, which would give her a natural reason to work with Krosp and Artie.

Work out the nature of Sarah's powers, and how to simulate them as a special ability. Unlimited in-game shapeshifting is probably a righteous pain in the ass, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps a limited number of forms - she can internally reconfigure to change what forms are available, but that takes time? (Either non-trivial game time, or out of the scope of gametime entirely) Having limited forms also permits the player to prepare finite useful costuming. --Darker Justin: Yep, good points all. Possibly she's limited to mimicry: she can only takes forms that she has seen in the relatively recent past. And she certainly needs to burn points in order to use the ability.

Work out her history in more detail, but don't go too far over the top. She should be specifically written as a local legend: everyone knows that "The Perfect Construct" lives in the Castle, but everyone disagrees about what it is. Maria should have information about this.

IMPORTANT: Due to player gender balance, Sarah needs to be rewritten to be male. This mostly affects what the disguise is, I think.

Sarah should have a specific game goal of protecting the Castle. She doesn't necessarily need to keep everyone out of it, but she doesn't want to see her master's work misused by anyone except the proper successor.

Sarah is disguised as Abner. How does she know what he looks like? Best idea seems to be that the cover story is true: Pix managed to convince the guards to let Abner go, so he could help the Circus raise money. But when he got to the clearing, two days ago, he was captured by Sarah, who terrified him into telling her about himself, and then locked him up deep inside the Castle. That has the advantage of making him available as an extra plot element, and a possible backup character if we should need one. It does mean we need to write at least a short character sheet for him, though.

Amount of Character Potential: Good (Needs a lot more writing, and a fair amount of design before I send out the casting info, but probably in game.)