Watch Squatch
Characters
The Governor
His school chum the Prince pulled the strings that got him the job in the colonial service. First Tasmania, then Antigua. He thrived on the edges of the empire away from the back-stabbing gentility of his peers. His tough hand with the natives in Tasmania gained him a reputation for no nonsense management. Like the writer Dickens, he sees the savage as something to be civilized off the face of the earth. Weary of the oppressive heat of the tropics, he has been looking for a place where he can really make his mark. This new post is his chance to impress London with his acumen. The fledgling colony has just enough well-heeled men to smoke cigars with him on the yacht that he calls Leviathan in tribute to his favorite proponent of strong government. With the empire behind him, he feels confident that he can pull off the job.
Mission: Playing the Governor, you must set up a protection racket, making your play when the miners rampage through. The mastermind back in London wants the job done in record time. As the local crime boss, you must coordinate the heist and move quickly to convince the Indians that resistance is futile.
The Priest
An Irish lad, he joined the monastery during the potato famine. Saved from starvation, he found God. Enflamed with the love of the Lord, he became a rousing orator. His passion caught the eye of an old priest who inspired him with stories of missionary work among the heathens. After taking his vows, he journeyed to British North America, determined to bring savages to the glory of God. He went armed with a parting gift from his mentor, an old Spanish cross made of gold melted down from the relics of the Aztecs. In exchange for land to build a mission, he colludes with the Governor, getting his flock to accept the authority of the great white mother. He assures himself it is for their own good. He is given a beautiful hillside with a creek for water and one of the first things he builds is the school where he soon has 42 Indian boys enrolled.
Mission: Playing the Priest, you find yourself the con man in the game. Your role is to make the natives compliant. Gaining their trust while denouncing their ways is a confidence trick of the highest order. You need to coerce with the threat of hellfire even as you bamboozle with the promise of salvation.
The Royal Engineer
As the younger son, he was destined for the military life and took to it like a duck to water. He always follows orders and never married, turning his affections instead to Queen and country. He is fresh from a tour in India where he stood with her Majesty’s finest as they took Delhi. Unfortunate that so many innocents were bayonetted, but how else to restore order? Keen for duty anywhere but the subcontinent, he jumped at the chance to survey new lands in the wilderness of British North America. He loves the challenge of laying the chain, end to end, in neat lines across the ground. He was there in London when the Colonial Secretary, the great man Lytton, delivered his famous sendoff speech. He can still hear the ringing words: “Children yet unborn will bless the hour when Queen Victoria sent forth her Royal Engineers to found a second England on the shores of the Pacific!”
Mission: Playing the Royal Engineer, you are the specialist who cracks the safe and opens up the land for profit. The invisible lines that you mark on the land are key to the imperial sleight of hand.
The Land Speculator
When he was a child in Upper Canada, his father cut a deal with the Crown for Algonquin land near a sleepy hamlet that was soon to become the centre of trade. Chopped into city lots, it made them a fortune. The family money bought him a seat at Oxford where his friendship with the playwright Swineburne got him into the Cannibal Club, an afterhours destination frequented by judges, politicians, and the best writers of London. The men drank heavily, reveling in exotic pornography and titillating stories from the colonies. He returned to Canada reluctantly, obeying his father’s orders to join the family business. He sees opportunity in the wilds of British Columbia. Settling effortlessly into the upper crust, he is soon getting hot tips from the Governor about a new town site. As an aspiring thespian, the Colonial Theatre provides a diversion while he waits for the authorities to clear out the Indians.
Mission: Playing the Land Speculator, your job is to fence the stolen goods. Snap up land in desirable locations, demonstrate the true meaning of subdivide, and laugh all the way to the bank.
The Settler
His family was forced off their little farm in the English countryside when the last of the commons were enclosed. He grew up on the streets of Manchester where horses pulled coal to the cotton mills whose smokestacks colored everything black with soot. At 12, he apprenticed to a mill, lucky to be in the warehouse and never spend a day crawling under the clattering machines that ate young fingers. Even in that fetid air, he preferred to be outdoors and longed for the countryside. A farm in England was out of reach, so he decided to try his luck overseas. It takes months aboard ship to reach British Columbia where he is surprised to find that the natives far outnumber the settlers. There is plenty of land, but before he can plant a single seed, he must clear all these trees.
Mission: Playing the Settler, your job is to treat the virgin forest like an uncooperative wench. Pull off her clothes, put her in bondage to the plow, and force her to produce crop after crop.
The Miner
An American, he was a baby when his family crossed the Indian line and hacked out a farm in Red Stick territory. He was six when the tribe pushed back against the invasion and his mother was one of those killed. He believes the only good Indian is a dead Indian. As a young man, he got a farm of his own, settling down on Indian land that he won in a lottery when the U.S. government sent the Cherokee down the Trail of Tears. He was married with four kids when gold fever hit. Tired of an unhappy wife and never having enough to go around, he left for California. He started with a pan, then partnered on a sluice box, and finally followed the vein underground. He made and lost a fortune several times over, spending it equally on wine, women, and poker. The long walk to this new El Dorado in the cold north sobered him up. He has just enough left in him for one more rush, and dreams of striking it rich one last time.
Mission: Playing the Miner, your job is to do the smash and grab. You bring havoc to the land by storming in and ripping the gold from her veins. Your frenzy of greed provides the cover for the empire to move in and take over.
The Pioneer
She learned ambition at the knee, watching her mother claw her way up the social ladder of their Scottish farming village. As a child, her grandfather regaled her with tales of the days when Britain trafficked in human cargo. An old sailor, he had worked on ships that smuggled slaves from Africa to the Caribbean. “Without the trade,” he would intone, “there would be no sugar! No tobacco!” Then he would puff on his pipe and pass her another peppermint. She has the old man’s habit of looking straight through anyone who is not lily white. Keen for adventure, and not finding the right suitor, she takes a ship to British Columbia. Her plan is to marry a good solid settler and help him prosper. Determined to be part of the new colony’s elite, she has her sights set on an estate and manor house.
Mission: Playing the Pioneer, you are the front for the operation, bringing an air of respectability. You must labor with the Settler on the land while also cleaning his house and raising his children. It falls to you and your fair sisters to keep the white men of the colony safe from the dangers of Indian women. “Going native” can rob even the most ardent thief of his energy and ambition.
The Whiskey Trader
Even as a boy on the Liverpool docks he had a mouth on him. At 15, he hopped a ship headed for India on route to run opium to the Orient. He got off in Hong Kong to apprentice in the drug trade. The empire had gotten good at peddling addiction in China, bringing in the gunboats when necessary to keep the market open. He was making great money when he slept with the wrong woman and, fearing for his life, boarded a ship bound for the Pacific Northwest. He won the shotgun, that he calls Lovely, playing poker his first night at the Fort. Laboring for the Hudson’s Bay Company, he scoped out the possibilities in his line of work. He sees easy money in whiskey and puts the silver side of his tongue to work making the right friends. He gets a glint in his eye when he thinks about the profit margins but keeps Lovely close.
Mission: Playing the Whiskey Trader makes you the drug dealer in the game. Your character traffics in addictions that unleash mayhem among the natives. Your contribution to the heist is to take resistance out at the knees.
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