Character A Day, Day Eleven

Diana, Warrior Princess

I Couldn’t Find “Justifiers”

So that makes two games I know I own that I have been unable to find. The last time this happened, it turned out two full boxes of games had been incorrectly filed. Anyway, with corporate-created furries fighting for human… er… animal… er.. furry rights in a World They Never Made not on the agenda, I grabbed a book of similar size and dissimilar everything else: Diana, Warrior Princess!

I mean, I have been watching The Crown, so I guess it’s kinda appropriate…

Diana, Warrior Princess is an RPG based on a TV show of the distant future — one which considers most of the 19th-21st centuries as one giant hodge-podge, just like a certain other show with a “Warrior Princess” which had the characters meeting King David and being present at the birth of Jesus. Other characters in the D:WP setting include riverboat gambler and analytical-engine programmer Wild Bill Gates, the conman L. Ron Hubble (who sold NASA a defective telescope), Thatcher the evil sorceress, and Prince Albert Einstein, who is married to Queen Victoria (who exists concurrently with the evil Queen Elizabeth; Victoria rules Britannia, you see, which is totally not the same as England. It’s one island to the left. I could go on; it’s basically brilliant, but I’ve got a character to create. Fortunately, it’s really easy.

You start with some number of points based on if you’re an extra or a star; the recommendation is 20, or Guest Star, status. There are sixteen attributes (more like skills, really), and you divide points between them. Each point gives you a die, you roll the dice and count successes (5+ on a die for Guest Stars).

Since the attributes are chosen based on concept, you must have a concept. Hmmm.

(Ponder ponder ponder… mind wander… hey, that rhymes…)

OK, I got this.

“Odd Steve” Jobs, a technological genius whose invention of a new super-glue, code-named “gooey”, was stolen in a rigged poker game by Wild Bill Gates, who used it to install windows up and down the Mississippi. (As Wild Bill tells it, however, Jobs himself stole the formula while he was living in the Xerox Park, and all Bill did was con a conman. The truth may never be known.) Nonetheless Odd Steve’s defeat cost him much, including some his sanity (hence his nickname) and he has become something of a bodyguard/assassin for hire, though one with a few scruples and a rough code of honor. He is known for always dressing in black, including his large bowler hat.

Now, there’s a concept!

So, 20 points, 16 attributes.

Computers: 2
Speed: 3
Strength: 5
Thinking: 4
Charisma: 2
Martial Arts: 1
Marksmanship: 3

In the past, his mental attributes were sharper, but his life as a hired hand has caused him to develop his physical traits while letting his learning slide just a bit. His primary weapon is his hat, which contains another invention he claims to have made, but which is widely credited to the Wozzard of Silicon Valley: The Hard Disk — a nearly-unbreakable razor-sharp rim. (Some claim the Hard Disk is not just a weapon, but contains mystical runes that reveal themselves if rubbed with a lodestone, but this has never been proven and Odd Steve denies it.) The Hard Disk Hat grants +1 dice in combat when thrown, so he would roll 4 dice (Marksmanship +1).

He first appeared in the Season 3 episode “Mysterious Musked Man”, where he was hired to protect Diana and Fergie on their quest to steal the mind-altering perfume known as Elon’s Musk.

That’s it, really.

This would be an awesome game to play in, don’t you think? For at least a con adventure or short campaign.