Some examples are: Abigail, Adele, Alana, Alice, Alison, Alwyn, Amanda, Amber, Amy, Angela, Anne, Arlene, Ashlyn, Belinda, Bianca, Caitlin, Cassandra, Cassidy, Catherine, Chantelle, Chardonnay, Cher, Chelsea, Claire, Colleen, Darci, Danielle, Deborah, Deirdre, Donna, Eileen, Elaine, Elizabeth, Elvira, Emily, Emma, Erin, Eve, Fiona, Genevieve, Gertrude, Giselle, Glenna, Gretchen, Greta, Hazel, Heather, Heidi, Helen, Helga, Hilary, Holly, Ida, Ilene, Imelda, Isabelle, Jacqueline, Jessica, Jillian, Joanne, Josephine, Judith, Julie, Juliet, Kaitlin, Karen, Katherine, Kirsten, Keira, Kelly, Kerry, Kyla, Lana, Laura, Liana, Lindsay, Leona, Lorelei, Louise, Lucy, Lydia, Lynne, Madeline, Maria, Marie, Margaret, Maura, Maureen, Megan, Michelle, Millicent, Miriam, Muriel, Nathalie, Naomi, Nicola, Nicole, Nola, Noreen, Oriana, Peyton, Rachael, Rebecca, Riona, Rose, Ruby, Sally, Samantha, Sarah, Sasha, Savannah, Sinead, Siobhan, Susan, Suzanne, Tanya, Tara, Tracy, Uma, Veronica, Victoria, Wendy, Winona, Yvonne
And for the exchange students: Ai, Akane, Ami, Aoi, Asuka, Aya, Ayaka, Ayano, Chihiro, Chinatsu, Haruka, Hitomi, Hina, Hoshi, Isumi, Kaeda, Kagame, Kana, Kaoru, Kotone, Kyoko, Mai, Manami, Mariko, Mayu, Megumi, Miho, Miki, Misaki Miu, Miyu, Mizuki, Moe, Momoko, Nami, Nana, Nanako, Nanami, Natsuki, Natsumi, Reina, Riko, Rin, Rina, Saika, Saki, Sakura, Shiori, Suzume, Tanaka, Tomoko, Toshiko, Wakumi, Yori, Yui, Yuki, Yuuka
For some girls, it is family that matters: in the case of a St Erisian's girl, that family is likely to be the Mafia. You are a gangster and a wheeler-dealer, although you prefer 'entrepreneur'. You know how to get what people want, whatever it is. You are a mistress of the art of the deal, knowing who to talk to and what to offer. Over time, you've built an extensive range of contacts and dealers who can lead you to what you need. Once you know where to get the goods, then you can make a deal. However, you might see if you can get hold of them some other way, such as breaking into the warehouse in the middle of the night. Blackmarket goods, drugs, stolen items; those are easy. Military equipment and experimental technology; well, that might take the weekend.
You know people, and a few of them owe you favours. Contacts have to be nourished, and sometimes punished, but with the network of other dealers, you know anything is possible. You can spend a Will point to remember someone who owes you a favour. Describe who the person is and how they can help you and the Headmistress then takes over that character when you visit them. The character may owe you, but they'll probably still need convincing to help you out. They don't owe you so badly they'll risk their life for you. Well, not without a little more persuasion, anyway. These contacts don't vanish when they've been used, so they can be called on again, although you may well have used up your favour.
You are one of the haunted, the dark creatures of the night. You dine on ashes and understand the misery of despair that few who do not contemplate death can possibly understand, but that doesn't mean you can't have any fun. No one understands you, and that's fine with you. Your version of cool is just plain scary to mainstreamers, and that's fine with you too. If they don't get it, they'd best stay away. You've got better things to do. As they are drawn to the darker side of life, most Goths and Emos have at least a passing acquaintance with the dark arts of magic and witchcraft, although plenty just like to say they do. Goths and Emos may look the same to outsiders, and they have pretty much the same skills and interests, but they differ greatly in attitude and philosophy. Most Goths understand you don't need to be constantly depressed and morbid to be in the scene, or that tragedy (especially in romance) is not a way of life, unless that's the sort of thing you're into. You should decide which your character is, Goth or Emo, but for the sake of ease we'll use the term Goth to describe both from now on as, in game terms, they are the same.
Even the perkiest Goth or Emo can look spooky and scary to most outsiders. After all, what might such a freak be thinking? Those black lined eyes might hide a thousand secrets. So, you have the ability to cause fear in those you choose to intimidate, merely by staring them in the eyes. To do this, you spend a Willpower point and whoever you meet the gaze of at that moment must make a roll to resist Fear (see chapter 4) at a difficulty of 5. The Headmistress may allow the Goth or Emo to use the ability to cut a path in a crowd rather than scare a specific individual. Even those who stand firm will usually get out of your way at the very least.
The sports team is the pride of any school, and St Erisian's has a record of sporting achievement that, well, is hard to believe. The girls who form the 'sporty types' at the school are not just experts with a hockey stick, but have also mastered several forms of weapon beyond blunt instruments. However, combat is not restricted to the hockey field and the more physical girls can find an outlet in all manner of acrobatic and athletic pursuits, such as breaking and entering, outrunning the police and taking out the opposition. If you get into a fight, a Hockey Girl is the person you want at your back.
Hockey Girls like to take charge, and usually there are few people who can stop them doing so. However, they also make good team players, even though they insist everyone is part of the team whether they want to be or not.
You have a natural knack for sports of all kinds. This being St Erisian's, by 'sports' we also mean armed and unarmed combat techniques. As a mistress of all forms of combat, on and off the sports field, you can add one die to your dice pool when attempting acts of violence.
You are just a cutie pie, the sweetest little girl that wouldn't hurt a fly. You have a smile of pure innocence and a girl next door purity to you. Well, that's what you look like anyway, even when you're holding a detonator. There is something about you that makes it hard to believe you'd do 'a thing like that'. You must have been led astray by those other nasty girls. Sweethearts are arch manipulators, experts in putting the blame on others and escaping the claws of justice. People just seem to trust you, which is usually a big mistake. The downside to this is that you need to maintain your image to at least some extent. You dress neatly and nicely, possibly wear a lot of pink and have to smile a lot. This often means that eventually you want to let your hair down and party hard when you can't stand it anymore. Plenty of Sweethearts are found dancing on a table with a bottle in each hand when the teachers come to see what the noise was about. Sadly for everyone else, even in such a situation the sweetheart can just point at someone else and say 'It was them'.
People find it hard to believe you could do anything wrong. Any time you are trying to convince someone of your innocence (for any crime from armed robbery to lying) no matter how obvious your guilt, you get a bonus die to add to your dice pool. The Headmistress might give you a bonus die when trying to put the blame on someone else as well.
You may not have beauty, but you sure have brains. While it isn't hard to be top of the class at St Erisian's (in many cases you just need to turn up) few people have your smarts. Maths, electronics and technology come easily to you. You play the stock market for a hobby, know how to strip down a computer and have probably read an awful lot of science fiction. You may well play a lot of those weird role-playing games as well.
While plenty of people think calling you a Nerd or a Geek is an insult, to you it is a badge of pride. You don't follow the mainstream. You're not a slave to what other people think is cool. In fact, you rather pity the others for not having the intelligence to understand the more complicated and interesting things that you are into.
You may not have too many social skills, but you don't need them to hack into a mainframe or network into a security grid. The things you are into might not be cool, but you can guarantee all the cool kids will start being really nice to you when their computer stops working.
Your brain just works better than other people's brains do. You can add a die to any dice pool where your intellect comes into play, such as working out odds, playing the stock market or hacking a computer network. However, this bonus only applies to single uses of a skill and not to building weird science devices or other magic and technology. As always, the Headmistress is the judge of what counts as a (nerd friendly) brainy task.
Someone has to be in charge, and it's usually you. You are a natural leader, and know how to take command with both inspiration and threatening terrible punishment. However, you are not in a position of power just so you can enforce school rules. Instead, you use your position to get things done; things you think need to get done. This being St Erisian's, you can't expect the other girls to just do as they are told, so you have to show a little backbone and command, much like a World War 1 General sending men out to die in the trenches. Getting St Erisian's girls to act as a cohesive unit is like herding cats, but if anyone can do it, you can.
You have a knack for planning and organising your team according to its strengths. If you come up with a plan and the others follow it, they can each choose one skill they will be using in the plan for which they get to add an additional die to add to their dice pool when they use it (but only to do the plan). If even one person deviates from the plan, everybody loses that bonus. The plan should be at least reasonably involved, and it is up to the Headmistress as to what constitutes a good enough plan to get the bonus.
As a prefect, you also have the ability to manage and control the wild gangs of 1st year girls. When on school grounds, or on a school trip when such a group might be available, you can instantly summon a horde of 1st years who can be sent to attack or just cause chaos. Such a horde is neither subtle nor quiet, but it often gets the job done. For more detail on 1st years and summoning them to do your bidding, take a look at page 121 in Chapter 5.
The frontier of science is not a limit but a challenge to you. Experimentation is the key to understanding the building blocks of the universe, and how to demolish them. However, you are not a bookworm like the Nerds. Raw knowledge can be learnt from books, and that's cool, but true knowledge must be earned. You are all about the practical aspects of intelligence and like to experiment for yourself rather than read about other people's results or play with computers. Your idols are Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin, not just because of the way they advanced science, but because they caused a lot of controversy and pursued the truth against all the odds and the establishment.
For you, the lab is your home. There, you can use the tools of reason to push forward the frontiers of both knowledge and possibly ethics. Competition is fierce as well, after all, do you really want to be the last girl in the dorm to bring life to the dead or build your first atomic weapon?
Dealing with life threatening chemicals in unstable surroundings builds a tolerance for the vagaries of fate. Very little can upset or scare you, especially when you put yourself in worse danger as a hobby. You may subtract 3 from the difficulty rating of all Fear tests (see chapter 4). So, to remain unmoved against a Fear test with a difficulty of 5, you need only roll a 2. However, apart from that, all the normal fear rules still apply and you still have a secret fear.
Some girls can make men go weak at the knees with little more than a glance, some girls, like you. You've been blessed with staggering good looks and killer style and you know how to work them. No matter where you are or what you are doing, you turn heads. Men are always trying to get close to you and women often want to be friends so they can find out your fashion secrets (either that or they are hatefully jealous of you). Whatever you wear or how you style yourself often becomes a fashion for the other girls. As you'd expect, being one of the beautiful people has a few advantages. Men are queuing up to take you to the best events and buy you the most expensive things. But really, your heart belongs to daddy, as soon as you decide who he is...
You can distract any straight man (and, on a good day, anyone at all) with a seductive glance. You might blow a kiss or give a teasing wink that, while usually quite subtle, utterly destroys their concentration. You may use this ability only once in a scene and focus it on only one man, but that man will automatically fail whatever task he was attempting at that moment. Anyone else is distracted in the very least. If you already have the attention of several men (maybe because they are chasing you) the Headmistress might let you affect all of them with one smile if she's in a good mood.
St Erisian's has a bit of a reputation, and it's not one that attracts the cream of European society. Luckily, Japan is very far away, and the rich families there have no idea quite how bad the school is. Convinced by the glossy school brochure, they believe they are sending their daughters to an expensive educational facility like Eton or Harrow. So they pack their daughters off to St Erisian's and assume that their lack of correspondence is due to them having a full education and not to their being locked in a basement. Luckily, the daughters in question either run home screaming after the first day, or find they rather like the place and keep quiet. Japanese exchange students usually come in two varieties. The first is the wealthy Samurai families. These families are very wealthy but know little about the school's real reputation. The other type of family know all about the school, although they never tell their daughters the truth. These are the Ninja (Shinobi) families who consider a term at St Erisian's to be the best way to finish their daughter's 'Kunoichi' ninja training. Ability - Family Jutsu
You must choose whether your character is from one of the Samurai or Ninja families. If your character comes from a Samurai family, she gets to add 2 dice to her dice pool when engaged in combat with a Katana (Samurai sword). She can also add 1 die to her dice pool when (socially not physically!) defending herself against any slur against her honour, such as convincing people she is not lying - even if she is. If your girl comes from one of the Shinobi ninja families she gets to add 2 dice to any dice pool involving stealth, sneaking or escaping bonds.
Skills go from 1 (Beginner) to 5 (Master). You can only have a 5 in one of the skills in your clique's Curriculum. In the system, having a skill of at least 1 is a great help, but very high skills can be truly astonishing. Thus, I recommend a spread of 5, 4, 4, and seven skills at 1.
The names are the names of school skills, but note carefully the description is tailored to St. Erisian's. For example, "Needlework" includes lockpicking and safecracking, "Leadership" includes torture, and "Games (Team Sports)" includes all melee combat.
| Art | Painting, Sculpture, Forgery |
|---|---|
| Biology | Animals, Plants, First Aid, Medicine |
| Chemistry | Acids, Chemicals, Explosives, Drug synthesis |
| Computer Science | Hacking, Web searching, Viruses |
| Craft, Design and Technology | Driving, Metalwork, Carpentry, Mechanics |
| Current Affairs | World and local news, High society scandal, Underworld activity |
| Drama | Imitation, Acting, Disguise |
| Economics | Buying, Selling, Trade, Haggling, Shopping |
| Electronics | Electrical repair, Modern locks, Bomb timers, Security systems |
| English | Poetry, Writing, Persuasion, Oration |
| Games (Team sports) | Sports, Hockey, Unarmed combat, Armed melee combat |
| Games (Track and Field) | Athletics, Running, Climbing, Stealth, Sneaking |
| Games (Marksman) | Thrown weapons, Firearms, Archery, Heavy weapons |
| Geography | Weather forecasting, Tracking, Field-craft, Trails, Survival |
| History | Military history, Tactics and strategy, Politics, Legal skills |
| Home Economics | Cookery, Housekeeping, Potions, Poisons, Herbalism |
| Languages | Communication, Specific language |
| Leadership | Inspiration, Team organisation, Torture, Interrogation |
| Maths | Financing, Stock market dealing, Gambling, Betting |
| Music | Music trivia, Play instrument |
| Needlework | Sewing, Fashion, Textiles, Lock picking, Pick pockets, Safecracking |
| Observation | Perception, Searching |
| Physics | Natural law, Engineering, Trap construction |
| Religious Studies | Ritual, Occult, Demonology, Necromancy, Witchcraft |
| Social Studies | Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Empathy, Seduction, Detecting lies |
| Veterinary | Animal training, Falconry, Horse riding, Veterinary medicine |
Finally, everyone has a weakness and you are no exception. There is something that worries you. It need not be a full blown phobia, but in a crisis it may make you freeze or run for cover. There are plenty of things to be frightened of in the world: spiders, heights, lifts, clowns, the Headmistress and the dark, to name but a few. However, your secret fear can also be quite abstract. You might have a fear of failure, drunks might remind you of daddy in one of his rages, you might be terrified that you'll be left alone. You only need to pick one secret fear, and you need not tell anyone but the Headmistress what it is. As you can imagine, you may lose Willpower trying to control it, but the Headmistress might also allow you to gain Willpower for overcoming it.