Atlas
Overview
- Pronouns: They/He/Any
- Race: Human
- Heritage: Highbridge - Masonlurch
- Background: Academic/Urchin
- Playbook: Lurk
- Vice: Weird (Knowledge)
Atlas is a short and scrawny human, barely 5 feet tall. The general impression is that you have found a bone-tired college student squirreled away during finals week, dark circles and all. They have shaggy dark hair cut close around their face and a pair of googles perched on the top of their head.
They're wearing a collared shirt streaked with dust with lopsided elbow pads. Over top, they're wearing a darker waistcoat and a knee length black skirt. You probably can't see, but along the edge of the skirt is messily embroidery that looks like the border of a compass rose, and further up the skirt are a few embroidered diagrams scattered about. They also wear a pair of thin, dark gloves.
Backstory (Potential Spoilers for other PCs)
As a very young child, Atlas and their single father moved to Highbridge in search of new opportunities after Atlas' mother died. Atlas' father worked as a laborer and Atlas spent each day in the Masonlurch library while he was at work. Atlas was quite the young bookworm and enjoyed spending their days there.
However, one day their father dropped them off in the morning and never came back. As the library night staff told Atlas to go home, Atlas refused, saying they have to wait for their dad.
After that, Atlas lived as an orphan. Various members of the Masonlurch community attempted to take Atlas in, but Atlas claimed the library as their new home, eventually learning how to sneak in after hours and creating a space of their own in the attic.
Atlas has read almost every book in the library at this point, their favorites being histories, archaeological accounts, and maps. While not the best with kids, they did help keep kids in the library entertained by reading books aloud and giving impromptu lectures.
Atlas was very curious about the exhibits and the gift shop and soon gained skills in swiping things unnoticed. At first, the library staff thought it was endearing, and was happy for Atlas to have trinkets that the staff would have given them anyway.
But then Atlas started stealing more valuable things, even figuring out how to swipe things behind glass. Eventually it escalated to Atlas' pick-pocketing tourists' belongings. And since Atlas knew the library better than anyone else, the staff couldn't find where they were stashing everything.
Eventually the Grumble police were called in. The library staff thought it would be a "scared straight" sort of interaction, but Atlas bolted. They eventually got caught and interrogated by the Grumble police. The Grumble police recommended that the library and the community crack down harshly on Atlas. The community took a softer touch, encouraging Atlas to start an honest job and get their own place.
Atlas worked in construction for a little bit, naturally suited for scaffolding. After being a frequent window shopper, Atlas was hired at the Lost and Found/Hidden Treasures pawn shop. They were eventually brought in for the group's shadier operations as well. That gave Atlas steady enough income to rent their own place.
Campaign Highlights
WIP
Connections
Close Friend - Pandora
Atlas met Pandora, the Lieutenant of the Lost and Found gang, as their manager at the pawn shop. Pandora was a professional mentor, polishing up Atlas' pickpocketing and thievery skills for the parts of Highbridge beyond the library walls.
Atlas has a crush on them, which they've never acknowledged. Pandora is clearly charmed by Atlas, and will generally keep an eye out for them, but as a higher-up in a medium-sized criminal organization, they've always got a lot of other things on their plate. Atlas gets their full attention when they come round, but Pandora doesn't generally seek them out unless they have a job that needs doing.
Rival - Muir
Muir and Atlas are around the same age, having grown up together in the unofficial Grumble Library babysitting service. Muir, however, is much more of a rule-follower and much more interested in protecting the things that people have worked to build (buildings, books, libraries, social structures, etc), even if that means protecting them from the people who might actually use them. So the two have always butted heads.
Even before Atlas turned to the explicitly criminal, Muir was the favorite kid of all the good Grumble-loving librarians, community leaders, church-goers, and so on. Things only got more tense once Muir joined Grumble's Enforcers, a relatively new development that somehow keeps having the two cross paths.
Backstory (Potential Spoilers for other PCs)
Muir and Atlas' relationship is complicated for many reasons. One of the most interesting and least-discussed is the fact that they staged a wedding when they were both around eight years old, and neither has dared to broach the subject since puberty. Muir is also one of the few figures from Atlas' time in Masonlurch that doesn't still call them "Addi".
Head Scholar Octor Roald
Scholar Roald acts as the head librarian of the Masonlurch Community Library, and therefore acted as a stand-in father figure for Atlas. The affection that this perpetually-tired, prematurely-grey dwarven man feels for Atlas often stood in opposition to the annoyance of other librarians who had to deal with them more in the day-to-day. The perhaps overindulgent amount of grace he continues to extend to his young, curious, lively mastermind of a pupil is no small part of why Atlas managed to hone their skills as long as they did. That said, especially in recent years, his words if not his actions have become more and more stern.