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DESCRIPTION
Short, cute and blonde, Stephanie cuts a distinctly unintimidating figure (“She’s not scary – what’s the opposite of scary? She’s that”). She has the kind of flexibility that attracts alternating fascination and disgust, and possesses a skill at acrobatics and contortions that would make a Cirq De Soleil member gag. Stephanie is white and Jewish, and her ancestry is French.
Stephanie’s financial situation is relatively dire, meaning that her getup consists of a black hoodie and jeans. She wears sneakers and headphones attached to a scavenged walkman. She tends to whistle a lot.
She approaches infiltration with long stillnesses followed by sudden bursts of movement.
PERSONALITY:
Stephanie is bright and chipper, upbeat and optimistic, grounded and strong in her convictions. She’s moral and righteous, courageous and daring. She’s happy with herself and disturbingly well adjusted – mainly because she exorcised everything she wasn’t happy about and put it into the body of her Fetch.
Stephanie is terrified of responsibility, of having to in any way limit her amazing, adventurous life. While she can handle missions, short term objectives, and self-imposed limitations, she can in no way deal with serious commitment of any kind. Captivity is her enemy, commitment is her bane.
Stephanie is endlessly curious and is prone to extremely impulsive decisions to find out new things. Despite these often poorly judged decisions, Stephanie’s great redeeming feature is knowing when she’s about to go too far. As much as she loves taking daring chances, when the risk is too great or when the rewards aren’t worth the costs, she is capable of just turning it down and walking away in a baffling display of self control.
HISTORY:
Stephanie grew up on adventure stories and action films. Thriller novels were a sixth food group for her, and she consumed endlessly. Batman, Indiana Jones, James Bond, any action story with daring heroes and clear villains excited her. She wanted to be an explorer when she grew up, or a vigilante – finding new places and new things, learning secrets and vanquishing evil.
She was always amazingly flexible and graceful, and the school gymnasium was nowhere near enough for her. She spent her childhood climbing into all the secret places she could find, never accepting the principles of ‘off limits’ or ‘out of bounds’. After some harsh words from the schoolteachers and her parents she took to hiding her expeditions with more care. She grew up in a rough neighbourhood and grew very practised at booking it when the gangers showed up.
Stephanie had a little sister named Helen, who she adored. She’d tell her all the made-up stories of her adventures, of the monsters she found on the rooftops she climbed to and the treasures she stole from fenced off junkyards. To Helen, Stephanie was a hero, and proof that all the stories and adventures could come true. Stephanie worked and studied hard, sure that someday she’d be able to go travel to distant lands and break into ancient tombs for herself.
But when Stephanie was fourteen, both her parents were murdered, and suddenly she was the sole carer of her little sister. She had to drop out of school, cancel her plans for travel, work full time in a KFC so that there’d be food on the table and that her sister could stay in school. Stephanie realised that she was going to have to watch every single one of her hopes and dreams die because she was stuck caring for another.
And that was when the offer came.
A customer came in on the graveyard shift while Stephanie was mopping up. He said that he was a member of the Royal Museum’s Acquisitions Department, and he was looking for an assistant to help him brave the perils of the Amazon in search of ancient treasure. Stephanie was extremely sceptical, but the stranger seemed compellingly honest. She told the stranger she appreciated the offer but couldn’t go because she had a sister to look after.
The stranger said, “If I were to promise you that your sister would not even notice that you had gone, would you come with me?”
And Stephanie laughed and said yes.
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The next thought Stephanie had, as she ghosted across the rooftops of silent New York towards the manor of the evil James McClaw, was that the promise had been broken. Her sister had noticed that she was gone. She had to escape.
It was without hesitation that she turned her back on the manor, McClaw and the Golden Trove of King Peropolis. She had more important places to be.
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THE FETCH
Stephanie Rosen’s Fetch was a soulless version of herself. She had no hopes, no dreams, no desires. She just worked, day in, day out, like a machine to provide for her sister. What would have happened to Stephanie if responsibility was allowed to kill her free spirit.
She applied this same remorseless responsibility to the care of her sister, telling her no stories, communicating only what she had to, shuffling from task to task with deadness in her eyes. The first time the Fetch felt an emotion was when Helen screamed at it, “I hate you! You’re not my real sister! I hate you!”
Instantly, the Fetch knew that the real Stephanie Rosen was on her way back.
And it felt rage.
That irresponsible, shiftless, lazy, runaway dreamer dared to come back here? That bitch dared to show her face her, in the house she had abandoned, to the responsibilities she had left behind? If that airheaded idiot came back here, took Helen back, both of them would starve on the street because the ‘real’ one would be unable to hold down a job.
Oh, no. She had worked hard for this life. She had sacrificed for this life. She wasn’t going to let anyone take it away.
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Stephanie was taken at age 15, and she escaped at age 20.
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THEMES:
Poverty...
The core theme behind Stephanie is the idea of poverty, of being unable to chase your dreams because of circumstance. The theme of victimisation is a part of this, and Stephanie often winds up as the world’s punching bag. Her story is one of a diamond trying desperately to escape the muck.
... and Dream
And despite this crushing poverty, she has hope, and she found a way to live out her hopes. Stephanie can see a brighter future and refuses to give into the despair all around her, and the despair she left behind in the form of her Fetch. And even the will to do better is a lot.
CORE STORIES
The Fetch
If Stephanie seems really well adjusted and optimistic it’s because her internal conflict is a little more... external than most people’s. The one opponent Stephanie can’t face is the Fetch; she’s been running so fast because she’s been running away from it.
Stephanie’s Fetch has all the power in any confrontation; all the arguments, all the bitterness, and all the skill and willingness to use violence to back it up. There is virtually no chance of Stephanie ever killing her Fetch. Instead, their story is a much more complicated one, involving the conflict of self-loathing and the unhealthy extremes of one soul in two bodies.
The potential resolution is hard to guess; perhaps the two learn to get along and accept each other as sisters, or perhaps they merge into the same being once again, or something stranger.
The Escape
Stephanie is aiming towards some big score, some legendary success, some worthy achievement that somehow takes her out of the slums and onto the world stage. She has a lot of incoherent and contradictory ideas about how to achieve this; joining a secret government spy agency, becoming a famous treasure hunter, stealing a submarine full of nazi gold, whatever.
This objective merits special mention because if she achieves it quickly then she’s basically removed herself from play. On the other hand, not including it does a disservice to her nature as a dreamer. To manage it in play, understand the two steps: Figuring out what she wants to be, and then working to achieve that. Minor stories will slow her down, but some major step towards her dream is a worthy season finale and the end of her arc.
If that arc ends, Stephanie will basically need a full redesign in terms of themes and stories and she’ll be essentially a new character at that point. If that’s playable or not depends where the game and other players are at that point.
SECONDARY STORIES
Learning to Fight:
In Arcadia, Stephanie sort of confronted the bad guys, and then they tied her up, and then she made a daring escape and disappeared into the night with the treasure. She’s not remotely used to the idea of physical violence as a thing that happens.
This is kind of a dark path that she could chance into, which could quickly spiral into madness unless she’s able to find some sort of emotional way to process killing. Killing human beings is a Clarity 2 sin, I believe, so if you get Stephanie hooked on murder then be prepared to deal with a legitimate psychopath before too long. If she processes it properly and focuses on bringing justice to Changelings and Fae-kin instead then it’ll be a much healthier character arc.
Vengeance
Stephanie never found out who killed her parents, and that trail is kind of cold by now. On the other hand, now she possesses a whole lot more magic than she did before. Her desire for vengeance is kind of an intellectual one at first, motivated by a vague sense of ‘what would Batman do?’, but it could turn into a horrible obsession especially if she has some nasty encounters with her Fetch and is looking for someone to blame.
The Street
Stephanie grew up in the projects on the absolute bottom layer of society and street life is just natural to her. She’ll naturally fall into the orbit the gangs and the poor even if she’s not a part of them because she doesn’t really know what else to do. She’ll quickly take up arms to protect her people from any supernatural threats that prey on them, and this is probably the most effective way to get Stephanie plot hooks.
The Spires
Stephanie doesn’t really understand boundaries, as free and unfettered as a dream, and will happily sneak or blunder her way into stuff happening in the upscale part of town. This seems likely to be a recipe to get in way over her head and involved in the conflict of serious supernatural powerhouses, like Mages. I actually quite like the idea of Stephanie getting involved in something far more serious than she ever expected and panicking as a response – that actually feeds into her themes of being scared of responsibility, of being Fate’s punching bag, and of finding an escape upwards all at the same time.
The Sister
Stephanie loves her sister. She doesn’t hate her for holding her back or ruining her life; all that frustration is a lot more incoherently focused, mostly at herself. Stephanie is used to telling stories and getting wide-eyed wonder from her little sister, but is probably ill-prepared for a surly, cynical teenager. Helen is kind of a harsh reality check on both Stephanies, one that neither of them has any idea of how to really deal with.
I have no idea what will happen with that story.
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Stephanie, the Durance and the Keeper
As far as Stephanie is really aware, she never really met one of 'The Fae'. She was plunged into a magical world of adventure and heroism and had to overcome evil villains and terrible obstacles in order to progress. For the most part, that world operated on PG cartoon physics where everything was sanitised and whitewashed - on the condition that she never hesitated, never doubted, and never looked back. Stephanie does has some intensely disturbing and graphic memories of terrible things that happened when she allowed doubt to creep into her mind. She considers those her fault and tries to repress the memories in favour of never making the same mistake again.
She's not really bright enough to recognise the idea that the other world she was in was shaped entirely by the magic of the Fae, or even recognising that there were Fae in charge of the entire story. From her perspective, the villains of her durance were cartoonish Snidley Whiplashes, or bumbling Nazi archaeologists with ridiculous deathtraps and ineffective master plans. Arcadia was kind of a dream for Stephanie, and there is the temptation to go back.
This raises a few tensions and potential conflicts:
- A naive insensitivity to those who had much worse durances
- A foolish quickness to investigate fae matters and negotiate with fairy beasts
- The ability to have civil discussions with her Keeper
- A story arc that increasingly connects her to the world and the people around her. The more she's cut off from contact, responsibility, and people and things she cares about the more likely she is to just drift away; this is not an interesting outcome. Leave off temptations to return until she's got a reason to stay.
In terms of the Keeper, I see Stephanie and it having a remarkably civil relationship - and it having a rather plaintive desire for a friend/daughter/playmate. If it approaches Stephanie again in-game it will likely be in a similar form/approach to how it first acquired her, appearing as a civil, elderly gentleman telling her there was a daring mission out there that only she could accomplish. However, as nice as it seems, it's still one of the Gentry and doesn't quite respect the ability of other people to make choices.
As it grows increasingly frustrated at being abandoned, the Keeper might step up it's game to try and get Stephanie to play along again. It could start bringing it's ridiculous conspiracies and adventures to reality in the form of shaped monsters or beasts, or casually break the minds of people or changelings to get them to play certain parts in it's stories. It might start trying to incite tensions between Stephanie and her friends, getting people to turn against her so that she's got nowhere to go but to it. In extremis it might kidnap Stephanie's sister. At no point would it be interested in harming Stephanie, physically or even emotionally, because her innocent dreams of adventure are what it finds so interesting.
There are plenty of directions for that relationship and story to go, some pleasant, some tragic.