Contested Ground Studios

[W Alexander]

Charlie Scahza

Age: 24
Height/Build: 5’4, slender and wiry
Eye/Hair color: Blue eyes, dirty blond hair, bordering on brown.
Occupation: Boxer
Affiliations: Street fighting clubs, soup kitchens, many urchin gangs

Cripplecut may be the most popular blood and bones sport in the city, but it isn’t the only one. There is something fundamentally human about two people beating the sense out of one another for entertainment; perhaps it’s a primal need to stake out one’s territory or to proclaim that no matter what technology might do, the human body will always be the most sophisticated machine ever created – or, perhaps, people are just bloodthirsty animals at heart. Whatever reason you prefer, it is a truth that in the City a good bout of bloody knuckle boxing is almost as well attended as Cripplecut, and at street level the current reigning champion of the bare fist scene is “Brickhouse” Charlie Scahza.

Born in Mire End to a drunk of a father and a whore of a mother, Charlie lived like most children – playing in dirty alleys, dodging gang members and learning to live life rough. When her parents abandoned her Charlie lived on the streets with a local orphan gang and made quite a reputation for herself as a “snatcher” – that is, a thief who snatches and runs with any valuable thing she can get close to. At the age of 6, however, her reputation caught up with her and she fell into a trap laid by local law enforcement.

Always on the lookout for useful candidates, Charlie was bought by a corp for their Mike Fighter program. Small for her age, and agile, the girl made a perfect candidate and spent the next three and a half years piloting the tiny aircraft. When she was 10 and no longer suitable to the task, a corp suit took her in as a serving girl.

Of course, the truth wasn’t so pretty. The man who “adopted” her ran a fetish show for high class sadists, who paid well to watch the girl hurt in new and imaginative ways. Between performances, her owner – for that is what he was, and she, no more than an abused pet – vented his own sadistic urges upon her regularly. But sometimes pets go feral and strike at their masters … and so she did, backed into a corner, beaten and scorned, Charlie Scahza finally lashed out and gave back some of the pain she’d had heaped upon her for so long – she was sixteen.

Escaping back to the streets she knew, the streets which hadn’t changed one bit in ten years, Charlie was left with very few options. She could have become a prostitute, one among hundreds, but even starving and cold she refused to let it happen – from then on she would choose who hurt her.

One day, nearly starving and sick with fever Charlie stumbled into a cheep street boxing fight – two dozen kids competing for the prize of a warm meal and bed to sleep for the night. Charlie wasn’t the best fighter then, not the fastest or most accurate, but she knew pain, knew how to take it, how to give it, and in the end she won simply because she could take a beating like no one else.

That began her career. Since then Charlie has learned a great deal about the sport and while she can still take a beating like no one she’s ever fought, she has also learned finesse, style and showmanship. There hasn’t yet been a person who could beat the girl in a fight, fair or otherwise, and if she wanted Charlie could be a professional – in fact, more than one fighter to go onto the big time has got their start being beaten down by the “Brickhouse”. But Charlie doesn’t want fame, it isn’t in her blood. In a strange way she likes the street – it’s what she is – and the idea of leaving it never seriously occurs to her.

To look at Charlie isn’t anything particularly special. She’s a pretty girl, if you like tomboys, her small frame a tangle of wired muscles, her nose crooked where it’s been broke half a dozen times at least; under her clothes her body is a network of scars, both old and new. Her hair, a dirty blond color, ranges from newly shorn to shoulder length – dependant upon whether she’s sold it for extra dough recently. (even a hair woven bracelet or keychain is valuable when made from the locks of a famous brawler) Keeping up images, Charlie always dresses tough, in a rough dogskin jacket and pants, her arms wrapped from wrist to elbow in grey boxer’s tape.

Beneath the ever cool and snide exterior of this down and dirty fighter, however, is a person who hasn’t forgot her past. Charlie has a particular fondness for children and does what she can to protect them from the worst of City life. Known to work at the rare soup kitchen, the champ makes it her business to keep older gangs from taking advantage of the urchins and orphans under her watchful eye. Indeed, story goes she broke a man’s jaw for cussing in front of a young kid and beat no less than one drug dealer to death for trying to push his wares on a weak or impressionable orphan. Of course Charlie can’t help every kid, and she knows this, but she can do something small for a few and put enough fear into predators that they think twice before preying on some young scamp.


Playing Charlie:

Charlie has a quick wit and a sharp tongue, both of which have a way of gaining her easy friends and enemies. For her part, Charlie doesn’t seem to care who she rubs the wrong way and never backs down from the promise of a fight. The only time she seems to genuinely smile is when dealing with children and she can go from perfectly amiable to deathly serious in the bat of an eye if she feels a child is being threatened. Though she doesn’t show it over much, Charlie is a person filled with a lifetime of accrued pain and every time she steps into some makeshift ring she lets a little of it out.


Story Hooks:

The players discover the existence of a new Child slavery ring in Mire End and either run into Charlie during their investigation or elicit her help in dealing with the problem.

It may have taken almost a decade, but someone has finally put some pressure on the local law to track down the girl who killed a corporate exec in his own home some years ago. The players either know Charlie or have an acquaintance who does and need to help throw off the heat, not to mention discover why the old case has been reopened.

Charlie has made some powerful gang enemies in her little effort to help the local kids and one of those gangs has decided it is time to settle the score. The players discover, through either a contact or part of another adventure, that a hit has been put out on the “Brickhouse” and they have to decide where they stand in the matter. They might be hired to do the hit themselves, or they might respect the woman and want to help – either way they’re going to make friends and enemies.

[W Alexander]

No love for Charlie, huh? She's less disturbing than my other npc submissions, but not lacking in character for that. I always liked her as an npc, but maybe she isn't everyone's cup of tea. Ah well.

[Malcolm]

Sorry, a bump like this is often good for bringing stuff back to peoples attentions after it may have languished for a spell.

So, I'm kind of getting the impression that Charlie would have a gaggle of very young kids that follow her around, almost in awe of her: She's their hero, mother and protector all rolled into one (slightly grubby) package. However, the kids could be her achilles heel. Does she genuinely care for them, or is it all part of her image? Will somebody start harming them to get to her?

I see Charlie as a pretty interesting PC, rather than just as an NPC.

Cheers
Malc
_________________
The worn sprocket on the singlespeed hub of CGS

"If the concrete and the clay beneath your feet
Don't get you son
The avenues and alleyways are gonna do it
Just for fun"

[W Alexander]