Character Sheet: Ilse Schmidt

Hard +1 Keen +1 Calm +3 Daring +1 Stress 0/10 Þ 9

Breadwinner: Instead of personal upkeep, you have two Dependents. Write their names, and mark 1 on one and 2 on the other. Each Routine, during Expenses, choose to pay 0, 1, or 2 Thaler for each Dependent. If you pay 0, erase one mark. If you pay 2, mark their track and describe what special thing you do for them to make their lives easier. A Dependent at 2 Marks removes 1 Stress per routine. A Dependent losing a Mark gives 1 Stress, and at 0 Marks they cause 1 Stress per routine ongoing.
Spouse: 2/3
Children: 2/3

Share the Burden: When you are intimate with comrades, the Stress of all the characters participating can be freely redistributed between them. If there are any NPC participants, 1 Stress is also removed from each PC. If you use this move in the air, 1 additional Stress is removed from each character.

Worker
Get it Done: Each Routine, hold 3. Spend that hold to score a partial hit on any roll, without rolling first.
Hard Drinking: Negate 1 Failure from the End of Night move.
Domestic Bliss: While you have 0 Stress, take +1 ongoing to all rolls outside of air combat.

Farmer
One in a Million: Hold 1 each routine. When you Open Fire or drop a bomb, spend the hold to get a perfect hit on the individual, component, or exact location you desire.
Trust Your Instincts: You get a new Mastery move every 3 marks.

Mastery: STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION
Victories: Buildings destroyed on the ground during combat missions. If you drop all your bombs and land safely back home, you count that as a Victory as well.
Good Eye: You ignore 5 levels of Altitude Penalty when bombing level.
Flying Fortress: Your gunners get to add your calm (+3) to their attacks

This Mastery is under development, so it's probably going to see some changes. Combined with your bombsight it means you can target 'accurately' from 1500m up! Probably don't hope for target deviation measured in single figure meters, though.
Ilse Schmidt
  • Born in Wingendorf, lately of Bergfluss
  • Himmilvolk: Bronzed skin, Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes.
Age: An adult (22-30)
Worker Expectations
  • Feminine
  • Responsible, Organized, Hardworking. Complains, High Energy.
  • Built AF. Grip strength off the charts.
  • Pretty much all her non-flying clothes are dirndls she stole from work.
Character History
  • Taught to fly by: nobody, I'm just winging it.
  • I left my home because: the jobs dried up and I want something better.
  • I fly so I can make some money and: make sure my kids have it better and finally get on that adventure.
Questions

What were you, before you were another anonymous worker?
A farmer, naive but full of potential.
Take two Farmer Moves.

What was your dream job as a child?
Doesn't every child dream of being a pilot?

What job did you actually end up working?
Barmaid in a bar attached to a brewery

Where are your family staying, if not with you?
We have a house, somewhere safe-ish

Assets

A membership in a large union: the Brewers and Allied Trades Union
Two coworkers with special skills: Jana and Marie.
A house somewhere relatively safe: Bergfluss

Dependents

A spouse without meaningful income:
  • Beatrice (Bea)
  • They're lovely, great with kids, and a pretty good teacher! Just...uselessly impractical.
  • "A cute, bespectacled soft butch useless lesbian".
A number of small children:
  • Petra, Kristin, Wolfgang, Niklas, Sabine.
  • We kind of ended up with a bunch of orphans after the Brewery War.

Plane
Markgraf Volksfestung A (Used: Mint)

Familiar Vices
  • Drinking
  • Tobacco
  • Sleeping
Other Vices

Dancing 2/3

Stats (Jobber)
  • Hard +1
  • Keen +1
  • Calm +3
  • Daring +1

Aircraft:



The Volksfestung (People's Fortress) is a beast in some ways, but very vulnerable in others. It has good speed and acceleration for a bomber, great carrying capacity, plenty of toughness, a top notch bombsight, and is loaded with guns. However! See that 'Strain' stat? That means we can take approximately 1G before the plane starts to creak at the seams. We're unlikely to be dogfighting, but if we do it's going to be just as much of a battle keeping our bus from destroying itself as it will keeping the enemy from filling it with holes. Dive-bombing is probably only going to work once.

Astute readers will notice we are short 2 crew! We will have to recruit a co-pilot and a third observer in the future. The plane will also need a cool name, new paintjob, and custom nose art at some point.
 
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I want to point out that in this setting Dragons are unequivocally capital-E-Evil. They are the local equivalent of the Devil, and played a prominent role in encouraging the apocalyptic war that Himmelgard is now recovering from.

They are mind controlling nuclear powered jet engine propelled incarnates of all that's bad in the world. We want to kill this one ASAP.
Eh, this is a bit of a misleading view.

Yes, dragons are an ancient malevolence, said to be responsible for all the ills that plague the Earth. Yes, they're equivalent of the devil.

But the thing is, you don't kill the devil, and the devil doesn't kill or hunt you. That's not their role in the story.
Thinking of the dragon as "how do we kill it" fundamentally misunderstands what it is.

Dragons see themselves as the true masters of Himmilgard: they've been here longer than anything else, they'll be here long after we're gone. Though seen in human mythology as an ultimate, apocalyptic evil, the dragons just see their continent as infested with an irritating pest. They simply figure it's easier to wait for us to die out than to track us all down.
 
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Eh, this is a bit of a misleading view.

Yes, dragons are an ancient malevolence, said to be responsible for all the ills that plague the Earth. Yes, they're equivalent of the devil.

But the thing is, you don't kill the devil, and the devil doesn't kill or hunt you. That's not their role in the story.
Thinking of the dragon as "how do we kill it" fundamentally misunderstands what it is.

I dunno, that all sounds pretty bad and something we should resist at every turn. It's not like they're invincible either - I figure we can at least drive it off. And the place they hold in Human mythology in Himmigrard means we'll probably be able to attract the allies we need to do so.
 
I dunno, that all sounds pretty bad and something we should resist at every turn. It's not like they're invincible either - I figure we can at least drive it off. And the place they hold in Human mythology in Himmigrard means we'll probably be able to attract the allies we need to do so.
It has an atomic breath that insta-kills any target it gets a good hit on (and shreds anything close), and a skin so though none of our weapons can touch it.
 
Chapter 1: Routine 3, Airfield Raid.
Bergfluss Militia Office, 11:00 | Hard +1 Keen +1 Calm +3 Daring +1 | Stress 01/10 | XP 11 | Þ 13 | Vice 0/5 | Tab 4

HMPH. YOUR UNPROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IS NOTED.
...

"
Uh...Frau Schmidt? Are you alright there? You sort of...spaced out. For an hour. And you've used a lot of paper. What have you even been writing all this time?"

You blink repeatedly at the sudden interruption. Becker is staring at you across a desk strewn with paper and several expired pencils. You look at the sheet you've been holding and it's not the one you remember, with the neat enumeration of profit and loss or any of the details about enemy forces or accidental detonations. It's just one word repeated in a childlike scrawl that pays no attention to line spacing or consistent kerning. In places it looks like you had to fight yourself to keep to the page at all.

Becker looks at another page with a bewildered expression and rubs his head with his shortened fingers.

"Why have you just written Drachen on this page? And...this one. And...all of these? The pirates can't have all been flying those old crates if they gave you and that other circus so much trouble? What...woah hey, I have to account for that!"

The pencil you were holding snaps in your grip. It sounds like a gunshot in this suddenly tiny room. You throw the pieces away and scrabble through the pages covering the desk until you find your original report form. The bottom quarter of the page has that same word scribbled all over it, but the bulk of your work is intact. You shove it in to Becker's chest with a grunt and turn to leave but he puts a hand on your shoulder to stop you.

"Hey, Ilse. Look, I get it. Sometimes this shit happens and it can be hard to cope. I won't tell anyone but if it gets to you again go see Doc Friedmann and get some pills to help you sleep or calm down. No shame in it."

You pat the hand on your shoulder.

"Thanks, Kevin. That's...not what's happening here. But thanks. Make sure Phillip gets that report, OK? You should probably burn all that paper. Uh. Bill me for it?"

You know the militia would prefer to recycle it, but there's something about it that's giving you the creeps. You're pretty sure you just won some kind of fight, but you're not sure what it cost you or who exactly you were fighting. You're sweating slightly as you leave the militia office and given it's a cool day that strikes you as odd. You try to push it out of your mind as you make your way across town to the Eagle to meet Marianne and Stefan for contract negotiations. Nice, safe, boring contract negotiations.

As you walk down the stairs a stein shatters against wall close enough to your head to make you jump. You take in a scene of absolute chaos with a practiced eye. Your friends have formed a knot around their table and are defending it from three other groups, all of whom are attacking each other with fists and whatever else is handy. There's a knot you recognize as militia pilots by their uniform, a group of well dressed youngsters you don't know, and what looks like the mail pilot and two other travelers.

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose.

[ ] Get in there and start swinging. Help your crew out but risk trouble. (Brawl +hard)
[ ] Try to get everyone to stop fighting.
- [ ] By firing your pistol in the air and yelling at them to behave. (Press The Issue +hard)
- [ ] By lying and saying the militia are coming. (Press The Issue +keen)
- [ ] By being an adult and resolving the issue with open communication (Press The Issue +calm with disadvantage because mostly they don't want to listen)
[ ] Go back up the stairs and wait it out. Maybe have a smoke.
[ ] Write in?
 
[X] By being an adult and resolving the issue with open communication (Press The Issue +calm with disadvantage because mostly they don't want to listen)

Definitely try talking before shooting
 
[X] Get in there and start swinging. Help your crew out but risk trouble. (Brawl +hard)

Nothing like a little exercise to help you get over the wibblies.
 
[X] By being an adult and resolving the issue with open communication (Press The Issue +calm with disadvantage because mostly they don't want to listen)


I mean the Worker is the Designated Adult :V
 
Average dice on 2d10 is 11, average dice on a 2d10 with disadvantage is 8.5, so while Ilse is very good at being the adult in the room, this isnt really the room for it. :p
 
[X] Try to get everyone to stop fighting.
- [X] By firing your pistol in the air and yelling at them to behave. (Press The Issue +hard)
 
[X] Try to get everyone to stop fighting.
- [X] By firing your pistol in the air and yelling at them to behave. (Press The Issue +hard)
 
OK, let's average these votes out. Press the Issue has 80% of the vote, but is split two ways - Calm or Hard. The remaining vote is for Brawl, which would be a Hard roll, so Press the Issue +Hard wins. As a concession to the Calm vote, the revolver will not be used.

If someone could roll 2d10+1 please?
 
Chapter 1: Routine 3, Airfield Raid.
The Eagle, 12:00 | Hard +1 Keen +1 Calm +3 Daring +1 | Stress 01/10 | XP 11 | Þ 13 | Vice 0/5 | Tab 4

You feel something trickling down your cheek form where a piece of the thrown glass hit you. You hope it's beer, mostly because it's easier to wash out than blood.

Looking down into the melee again you think about drawing your revolver as an attention grabbing device before you remember the Eagle is in a basement and firing bullets through someone else's floor is not very neighborly.

Instead you put your fingers in your mouth and whistle in the ohrenbetäubend style you learned years and years ago down on the farm.

It's supposed to summon dogs from over a kilometer away in thick forest. In this enclosed space it might as well be an air-raid siren, and you are rewarded with an almost immediate cessation of hostilities and the eyes of the room turn to you.

Even engine-deaf pilots can still be impressed by the right kind of noise.

"Cut this shit out right now before I hurt more than just your ears! It's not even lunch time and you pack of children are fighting? Dresner and Zimmer, what the hell is this all about?"

You glare at the two young pilots. Anne sheepishly stops using her crutch as a bludgeon and leans on it instead. Andreas coughs. Marianne speaks up first, muffled by Stefan's attempts to keep a hand over her mouth.

"It was these...gentlemen...that provoked it, Frau Schmidt. They insulted the honor of my college, and I-"

One of the immaculately groomed boys in question scoffs as he tries to adjust his torn collar.

"What honor? It's not even a real college, just a distaff campus of-"

He's cut off by one of his friends elbowing him in the ribs as you turn your deadly gaze on him. The elbower addresses you somewhat more deferentially.

"I'm very sorry, Frau...Schmidt? I'm Maximilian Jager. My colleagues and I are traveling from Heidelheim University on some doctoral study and Jonas here can be a little overly patriotic about the old school. High spirits, you know. Won't happen again. "

He has a charming smile. It probably works to distract and disarm a lot of people, but you're not in the mood.

"Damn right it won't. Find somewhere else to drink. Don't bother my crew again, or you'll be needing a doctoral of medicine."

The smile slips f his face for a second and the elbowee looks like he's about to object when Maximilian steps on his toe in a pointed manner.

"Oh, we were just leaving. Lovely to meet you and your crew. Charming city all round, really."

The four of them file up the stairs with the studied nonchalance of young men who just have somewhere better to be right now, and who are definitely not going to hold a grudge over this.

(They are absolutely going to hold a grudge over this.)

You turn to the militia and transport pilots, who are all leaning on the bar with expressions of studied innocence. You put your hands on your hips and tilt your head in an unspoken question. The mail pilot cracks first.

"Sorry, Ilse. We just got carried away in the excitement. Didn't think it would get out of hand. Do we have to leave as well?"

She looks hugely relieved when you shake your head.

"Just keep it civil for an hour or two, I have to write up a contract with these knuckleheads."

You jerk your thumb back towards the four people currently cleaning up the mess on their table. She nods and passes you a beer, which you sip as you walk over to the knuckleheads in question. Marianne looks like she's about to launch into a lengthy apology but you cut her off.

"At least tell me you were winning, the thought of any crew of mine losing to those overdressed snobs is embarrassing."

You smile to let them know it's a joke, shrug when no-one laughs, and take out a notepad and pencil.

"OK, who here has actually negotiated a real contract before? Not just 'Oh please Herr Pilot save us from bandits we will give you Thalers!' but something with defined terms and clauses? None of you? Actually that's a point, why are you two here?"

Andreas and Anne have sat at the table and are paying close attention. He answers slowly.

"I...we...Anne and I, that is, decided to wrap up Hirsch Gruppe. We lost the friends we founded it with, it doesn't feel right to keep it going. But we wanted to keep being pilots, and we were thinking...we could join your circus? If that's OK?."

You lean back on your chair and regard the two of them over the top of your beer.

---

Are you going to formally include Anne and Andreas in your circus?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

What sort of company do you propose:

[ ] A traditional top down structure, with you at the top making all the decisions and disbursing profits at your discretion?
[ ] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally?
[ ] Other? (Write in)

What will the company be called?
[ ] 'Schmidt's Schwarm'
[ ] Write in?
 
[X] Yes
An unescorted bomber is bad news. This is a good addition.

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally?
Because I'm a dirty commie, what can I say?

No vote on name at this time because I am waiting to see what people come up with.
 
[X] Yes.

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally?
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.

Not sure on name. Wanted to propose Bergfluss Babes, but Andreas might not be thilled about that.

[X] Bergfluss Babes
-[X] Tail roundel: An overflowing stein with its handle in the shape of a capital B, in its natural colors (yellow/amber beer and white/cream foam), on a cadet grey circle.
-[X] No wing roundel, nose insignia, or overall color/pattern is required, though salacious noseart is encouraged.
 
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[X] Yes.

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally. We get final veto power, with the rest needing unanimous vote to avoid/overturn veto
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.

Not sure on name. Wanted to propose Bergfluss Babes, but Andreas might not be thilled about that.

[X] Bergfluss Babes
 
[X] Yes.

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally?
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.
 
Are you going to formally include Anne and Andreas in your circus?
[X] Yes

Escooooooooorts

What sort of company do you propose:

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.

What will the company be called?
[X] 'Schmidt's Schwarm'

It's a bit more formal and less silly.
 
Are you going to formally include Anne and Andreas in your circus?
[X] Yes

What sort of company do you propose:

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.

What will the company be called?
The De-Livery Service
 
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Are you going to formally include Anne and Andreas in your circus?
[X] Yes

They'll make it expensive to fly, running. Business ain't cheap.

What sort of company do you propose:

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.

What will the company be called?
[X] 'Schmidt's Schwarm'

......though obviously these damn kids will get some kind stylized insignia of "Bergfluss Babes" on their planes :p
 
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[X] Yes.

[X] A horizontal structure, with decisions made democratically and profits shared communally. We get final veto power, with the rest needing unanimous vote to avoid/overturn veto
-[X] You get a fair share of any money made from the day you sign, and you get a vote after completing your first mission with the company.
--[X] Yes, we'll count the last one as your first, but any future hires have to fly one before they can vote.

[X] Bergfluss Babes
 
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