Character Statistics
Adventure Ideas
Seamus is a solitary inventor and gunsmith with outstanding abilities and a taste for strong ale. He was born in 1695 in Ireland and by 1712 was apprenticed to the famed gunsmith Jamie Forgemaster of the Scottish clan, Moch Ich Pichanagh (Fire In The Hole). He moved in the late 1700's to the New World during the Scottish relocations by the British. Unlike his human companions Seamus came willingly. He had handled these mens weapons during the battle of Culloden and wasn't about to give up on them.
Seamus' skills were instrumental in arming the fledgling United States during both its war for independence and its war with Great Britain in the first few years of the century. In 1830 he announced to the many friends he had accumulated in his new home of Virginia, "I think I'll brush up on my Spanish," and moved westward to California.
During the gold rush of 1849 he was a common sight at many mines. Those miners who were smart enough to befriend him lived longer and got richer than most. In 1855 with quite a bit of money stashed away he quit mining to focus on his one true love; gunsmithing.
He had made a name for himself in the industry by 1870 and was often contracted by the Jupiter Arms company for modifications and design work. Some of Jupiter Arms best weapons (such as the Thunderbolt .30 repeating carbine of 1872 and the Lightning .50 water-cooled machine-gun of 1878) have been designed by Seamus.
In 1880 to combat the problem of revolvers leaking gas through the gap between the face of the chamber and rear of the barrel thus reducing efficiency he designed a gas-seal that would close this gap during firing. An unexpected benefit of this was that he had created the first revolver that could be effectively fitted with a sound suppressor. Marketed by Jupiter Arms as the "Whisper", the revolver/suppressor combination went on to gain world-wide success.
But not all of his talents were in feats of engineering.
"Four foot tall, hunerd-fifty pound. Meanest damn thing with a pipe wrench I ever seen." This is the way one patron of the Golden Nugget bar in Santa Rosa once described Seamus after watching him in a bar brawl armed with a a two foot long, half-inch, drop-forged steel adjustable wrench named "Garr Ich Banogh" (literally "Nutcracker" in Dwarvish).
He still holds the San Francisco Oktoberfest drinking record, for 25 gallons of bock in 4 hours.
| Great | Inventor | Innovative and creative, Seamus has designed and created a formidable array of conventional and wildly speculative weaponry. |
| Good | Tinkering | Like any good dwarf Seamus can't keep his hands out of intricate machinery. If given the opportunity he will take apart the most complex of devices just to figure out how they work. |
| Good | Perception | Not a lot escapes Seamus. He has a keen eye that takes in the world around him as clearly as it takes in the seams and rivets of his designs. |
| Good | Fisticuffs | What good is courage if you can't back it up? He is well known in various San Francisco bar circles as an expert brawler and an accomplished knife fighter. |
| Good | Charisma | A likable personality and a fun disposition (especially when drinking) make Seamus very easy to get along with. |
| Poor | Riding | Let's face it, at 4 feet tall, he's just not built for it. |
| Possessions | Garr Ich Banogh (3 wounds), Steam Schooner, smith tools, blacksmith shop, | |
The characters can encounter Seamus in a variety of ways. He is a good man in a fight, and invaluable when a gun needs repairing (or inventing) or when the players are faced with an impossible situation that needs an impossible device.
| Patron |
| Seamus is designing what may turn out to be the next great invention of the 19th Century. But to complete the device he needs certain esoteric magical texts that no one seems to possess. No one in the California Empire that is. He has found a seller in New York who will part with the tome, but only for the highest price. Seamus asks the players to accompany him to the U.S. to buy the book. He assures them that it is a simple matter and then they can enjoy the sights of New York. Think of it as a vacation. Possible hitches include 1) Seamus is arrested in New York for drunk and disorderly behavior. 2) The book is a fake and Seamus won't leave until he gets his money back. 3) The book is real, but its been stolen from the Freemasons! |
| The players, close, personal friends of the innovative Dwarf go for an impromptu visit only to find a smoking crater in the center of his smithy. Looking closer they find it is not a crater, but rather a tunnel, and it looks as though it was dug out from below. With carbide lamps strapped firmly to their heads the players must descend into the bowels of the earth and discover the fate of the poor inventor. |
| Ally |
| "Where the hell d’ya think I’m goin’? Wit you o’ course. Ya don’t think I’m gon'ta let you fire that thing on your own do ya? You’ll blow the whole town to shite! And no, I don’t care if that was the general idea! I’m still goin’!" |
| Informant |
| Seamus can be a great help on figuring out infernal devices like automaton soldiers and how to dispatch them. And chances are he even has the tool to do it. You never know when he might come in handy. |