LWaSH character: Arthur Chamberlain

Arthur Chamberlain
Vatican-Trained Thief of Ancient Artifacts
(played by Brian)

ASPECTS
• Uncommon Thief
• Edinburgh Street Urchin
• Lupin the Mentor
• Artifact Acquisitions
• Many Identities, Many Personas
• Spear of Destiny
• Why Is It Always Cultists?
• It's the Artifacts, Stupid.
• Storm Cloud Stalkers
• Like Robin Hood with Style

SKILLS
+5: Burglary
+4: Deceit, Stealth
+3: Athletics, Mysteries, Sleight of Hand
+2: Academics, Contacting, Investigation, Rapport
+1: Alertness, Drive, Engineering, Guns, Resolve

STUNTS
• Clever Disguise
• Human Spider
• Personal Artifact: The Spear of Destiny (advances: transmutation, unnoticeable)
• Quick Exit
• Tripwire Sensibilities

This character's name is actually Oliver McIntosh. "Arthur Chamberlain" is actually just his English persona, and the one he uses while functioning as a member of the London-based Van Helsing Society. (He's also got a host of other international identities, named James McCrimmon, Rene Girard, Helmut Schwartz, Roger Johnson, and Igor Leonov.)

His deal is that he was born Scottish and poor, the son of an Edinburgh pickpocket. His father was eventually caught and hanged, and he was taken in by a Catholic-run orphanage. There, his natural talents for thieving were noticed, and the Vatican ended up grooming him as its "Artifact Acquisitions" expert. That is, training him to steal dangerous occult objects for either safekeeping or prudent destruction.

One object he actually held onto was the head of the Spear of Destiny. Interestingly, he's found that is has the ability to change into any simple object of similar size. Also, it has some property which causes people to overlook it if they aren't looking for it rather specifically. These qualities make one wonder if this artifact actually has anything to do with the spear that pierced Christ's side, or if it might be something else entirely.

Anyway, Arthur has so far only participated in the first bit of this adventure, and I'm sorry to say I was a really poor GM for him. We decided to stay behind any keep watch over the scene of a break-in (someone else's work, I should specify) while the rest of the party was elsewhere, and I didn't use that to hand him anything cool. I should have had some new player show up and attempt a second break-in, or at the very least compelled one of his aspects to encourage him to do something. Instead, the player just decided to infiltrate the police-controlled crime scene himself out of boredom.

Anyway, notes on some of his odder aspects: "Lupin the Mentor" refers to the fact that he was very possibly trained by the son of Arsène Lupin (and the father of Lupin III). "Storm Cloud Stalkers" refers to a curse he suffers as a result of an incident with a storm-related artifact: Storms follow where he goes. I wouldn't say it's literally cartoonish dark clouds hovering over his head, but I figure that the weather is just a lot more likely to turn stormy when he's around. (This actually offers huge opportunities for synergy between him and Robin's "Thunderbird" aspect. Plus, she's got a crush on him, so she's totally likely to be tagging along with him anyway.)

Anyway, I hope to do better by Arthur in the future.