Agatha Heterodyne

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post I tried to come up with a Savage Worlds version of Agatha Heterodyne, the heroine from Kaja and Phil Foglio’s Girl Genius.

Creating this character was actually harder than I thought. For now I used the Arcane Background (Weird Science) edge for the Spark abilities, although this edge is probably not powerful enough. I also had some trouble coming up with the right powers for her. If any of my readers has some ideas how to improve the character built, I would be very interested to read what he or she came up with.

Agatha Clay (aka Agatha Heterodyne) (as at the beginning of Book 4)
Heterodyne Heir, Novice Spark

Agatha and GilAgility d6
Smarts d10
Spirit d6
Strength d4
Vigor d4

Pace: 6, Parry: 5, Toughn.: 4, Charisma: 0

Skills:
Fighting d6
Knowledge (Science) d8
Persuasion d6
Repair d6
Shooting d6
Weird Science d10

Edges/Hindrances:
Arcane Background (Weird Science)
Mr. Fix It
Wanted (By Baron Wulfenbach)

Powers:
Smite

Agatha has built several clanks (including small, self-replicating ones) and worked on a couple of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach’s inventions while she was on the “Castle Wulfenbach” airship, but there were no fitting powers. When running a campaign inspired or based on Girl Genius, the GM definitely needs to add some more powers to emulate especially clanks and some other devices commonly created by Sparks.

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

4 comments

comments user
Joshua

You probably should give her an Edge to represent being the Heterodyne heir, considering the special treatment she gets from things like the Jaegermonsters and the castle because of it. I'd also give her at least some Charisma–lots of people risk quite a lot for her on a remarkably short acquaintance. Her relationship with the Other probably rates a Hindrance of some sort as well.
.-= Joshua´s last blog ..The Problem With Murder Isn’t The XP Awards =-.

comments user
Stargazer

Hmm, you've got some points there.

comments user
Joshua

And now that I think of it, Clueless is a possible Hindrance. She had a fairly sheltered upbringing, thanks to the Clays and Dr. Beetle, so basically everybody in the setting seems to have a better grasp of history, geography, and politics than she does. Partly this helps justify all the exposition, but it's also a piece of her character: she just doesn't have the common knowledge of things like how dangerous it is to try to cross the badlands, etc.
.-= Joshua´s last blog ..The Problem With Murder Isn’t The XP Awards =-.

comments user
dr. checkmate

I think Gadgeteer might be a better fit than Mr. Fix It. Through out the series she builds a lot of one off devices, and Gadgeteer better reflects that.

As to her being the Heterodyne heir and [spoiler redacted]… I would say those are both things that will have to come with Advances and XP 😉

Characters with the Spark could all use a sort of "racial" template, too.

Let's say two skills at d6 each. Repair and Knowledge (SCIENCE!), the usual human edge, and balance the skills with Overconfident. I like that. It's succinct and allows for a lot of role-playing flexibility for individual Mad Boys and Girls. Also, covers lesser sparks who might just have more mundane gadgets and McGyver.

Huh. Thanks for the inspiration!
.-= dr. checkmate´s last blog ..Arcane Background: Spiritualism =-.