Porcelain Boy

Porcelain Boy is a backup character I never played for an Esoteric Enterprises campaign. The idea still fascinates me.

I was rolling up a Spook. What would become poor Porcelain Boy rolled a '1' for HP. It was decided then that his skin and flesh were made of glass, for even the slightest bits of force would destroy him. The choice to play such a fragile character - one who cannot sustain any amount of danger or violence but who chose to adventure anyway - remains intriguing. Perhaps Porcelain Boy will survive to become strong and cruel, or perhaps he will tragically perish at the height of his naivety.

Source

Porcelain Boy - Spook

S 13 D 10 C 10 I 11 W 9 Ch 10

HP: 1

Power: Removable Limbs

Items: Helmet, Heavy Boots, Heavy Gloves, Flashlight, Mirror

(The clothes are made of glass, like him. Part of a set: 1) Firefighter 2) Soldier 3) Yodeler)

Strong like a tensile glass. Skin perfectly smooth. Under the joints he's connected with steel wire and spring. When he stretches you can hear the plates of porcelain clack against each other and the springs yawning. The appearance otherwise is of a full-sized boy on the cusp of puberty, 12 years old.

There is great detail in his face, so laboriously crafted. There is perfection in the imperfections - the composition of freckles, the subtle creases, the eyelashes, the eyes. Perhaps he was modelled after some real boy somewhere, now lost to obscurity.

What is his quest? Why does he delve into the dangerous unknown at such great risk?

1. He is running and hiding from a witch, hoping the danger will deter her from following. She kept him as a pretty thing in a glass cabinet next to the other dishes, and he could stand containment no more.
2. He wants to discover magic, believing it might mend his inevitably fragmenting body.
3. He wants to become a real boy. An 'old wise man' once told him that he'd find this secret at the center of the earth.
4. He has heard that there are others like him, somewhere down below. He believes this to be his long lost family, and dreams naïve fantasies about them.
5. He seeks The Wizard of Oz to grant him a real heart like the Tin Man. All movies are real, but he has only seen the one.
6. He seeks Humpty Dumpty, who surely must be his brother. Anything is real that rhymes.
7. He knows that there is a real boy out there who he is modelled from. He seeks his so-called twin brother, but does not know that he's now aged into his 40's.
8. He seeks the man to made him - Higashi Shiro. But why would his creator go Underground?
9. He must know whether or not he has a soul. Only the Lady of the Deep Lake could answer this question.
10. He loves his companions, and wants to protect them from all danger. He will foolishly throw himself between them and the hazards of the Underground, believing himself a hero.