WIP

Name
Caleb “Cal” Mercer

Gender
Male

Age
36

Appearance
Tall (6′1″) and rangy, with sun-browned skin, a hawk nose, thick chevron moustache, and tousled chestnut hair worn just long enough to sweep beneath a battered slouch hat. A thin saber scar runs from his right cheekbone to jawline, a souvenir from the Sudan. Favors a weather-worn leather vest over a cavalry shirt, leather gauntlets, and stout lace-up boots. Carries himself with easy confidence, blue-green eyes constantly scanning like a predator gauging the wind.

Nationality
Colonial Australian

Personality
Equal parts roguish charm and soldier’s discipline. Cal greets danger with a crooked grin and a wry quip, yet observes unfamiliar peoples and creatures with genuine curiosity and respect.

Role
Expedition Scout & Forward Reconnaissance Lead

Skills

• Crack rifle and revolver marksman (colonial sharpshooter champion, 1887)
• Wilderness survival & path-finding in jungle, desert, and alpine terrain
• Competent sabreur and knife-fighter; trained in bush horseback riding and camel handling

Personal Belongings / Equipment

• Greener–Marston 11 mm lever-action “volt-rifle” (steam-coil boost gives silent, low-smoke shots)
• Webley top-break revolver
• Remington-Eclipse Model 8 “Steamwinder Carbine”
• Bowie Knife
• Collapsible brass spyglass, sextant, and pocket chronometer for over-land navigation
• Spring-loaded grappling launcher with 30 m silken cable
• Weather-sealed journal/sketchbook and charcoal pencils
• Miscellaneous clothing
• Leather backpack
• Bandolier and water canteen.

Background
Born on Melbourne’s ragged waterfront to a Cornish railway engineer and an Irish school-mistress, Caleb seemed fated for the ordinariness until a brawl with a drunken officer saw him “volunteer” for the Victorian Mounted Rifles at nineteen. He shipped out with the Sudan Expedition scouting wadis for the relief column at Tamai. There he earned both a silver marksman’s clasp and the scar that creases his jaw, surviving a night ambush by Mahdist raiders.

Mustering out with a taste for dust and danger, Cal drifted up Africa’s east coast after a five year service. He guided ivory caravans across the Kalahari, where he once tracked a wounded bull elephant for three days with nothing but a cracked compass and a single canteen. In Zanzibar he crewed on the coastal steamer SS Meerkat, rescuing a German zoologist from slavers and earning a battered Walther field glass as payment.

His wanderlust next carried him to the Crown Jewel of Asia. In the Indian Highlands he earned bounty by hunting rogue tigers that had learned to stalk rubber plantations like orderly rows of prey. A local shaman taught him to read jungle bird-calls for signs of storm or hungry felines. Those lessons saved a dozen Hindu workers when a flash flood roared through the Ganges River gorge.

Mercer continue on with his ventures, landing in the Amazon's where for two seasons he hacked survey lines through choking rain forest to reach the half-swallowed temple complex of Kuma Dara, the first outsiders to set eyes on its stone doors since the Portuguese expeditions. Cal sketched glyphs and dismantled clockwork traps alongside French epigrapher Dr. LaSalle, gaining an amateur appreciation for dead languages and a sprained wrist resetting a twenty-ton pressure plate to avoid being crushed.

By 1889 he had found the sky more forgiving than the jungle and signed on as deck gunner aboard the tramp-dirigible Cloud Wombat, hauling freight (licit and otherwise) from Darwin to Valparaíso. During an unsanctioned salvage run over the Aleutian archipelago, he rappelled onto an ice-locked Russian packet to recover sealed survey cylinders, only to flee when volcanic tremors tore the floe apart beneath his crampons. The incident caught the attention of the clandestine Eclipse Consortium, which quietly retained Cal for “delicate retrievals.” Among these was extracting a jade astrolabe from a booby-trapped antechamber deep in the Burmese Delta, where mercury-weighted idols still swung on ancient counterweights.

Weeks ago, the Consortium forwarded a discreet letter: financier-explorer Natan Wright requires a scout with experience in particularly dangerous territory for an airship venture to a “primal continent.” The pay was handsome, but it was the phrase “uncharted interior teeming with yet charted megafauna” that sealed Mercer’s answer. He sold his share in the Wombat, topped off his volt-rifle coils, and booked the first aircoach eastward, keen to add one more impossible story to his growing repertory.

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Name
Jacob Gibbs

Gender
Male

Age
32

Appearance
Brown hair, green eyes, well-trimmed beard, Priest's Robes, crucifix

Nationality
American

Personality
A devout Christian with military discipline and a desire for redemption. Shell shocked from his time in the army, Jacob Gibbs has sworn to only raise his gun to protect himself and/or those whose lives he's been entrusted with.

Role
Expedition Chaplain

Skills
Marksman with Rifles
Preaching

Personal Belongings/Equipment
Winchester Model 1873
Bible

Background
Born a middle child on the frontier, Jacob Gibbs lived a quiet life on the family farm, learning how to use a gun. Jacob's brothers were content with their lot in life. Jacob and his older brother Michael, on the other hand, wanted more from life. Jacob would join the army when he was old enough in pursuit of adventure while Michael would leave the ranch to chase his dream of becoming a businessman. When the order came to move out, he was thrilled at the thought of fighting his first battle. It was not the glorious adventure he was expecting. His unit found themselves facing of against numerically superior native warriors and many of them were killed in the fighting. It was during this skirmish that Jacob Gibbs made his first kill and his second and his third. He made it out of it alive, but he had seen that war was Hell.

Once the war was over, Jacob Gibbs joined the clergy out of a desire for redemption, swearing to never raise his gun again unless it was to defend himself and/or those whose lives are entrusted to him. It was after one of his sermons that he reunited with his brother Michael. Michael had made his fortune off of oil and wanted to hear of his brother's war stories. He told him about his service in the army: the battles he fought in, the soldiers who died alongside him, and the lives he took. He then asked Michael why he was there, adding "You didn't come here just to ask a preacher about the war". Michael told him that he had joined an expedition to a lost continent funded and led by his associate Nathan Wright and wanted his brother to come along. Jacob Gibbs told him that he is not some gunslinger, but Malcolm said that if the expedition was successful, Jacob would get some of the treasure that might be there. Jacob accepted the offer on the condition that his share goes to the Church. Malcolm agreed, Jacob grabbed his rifle, and the two left the town.

The two brothers arrived in London, Jacob Gibbs surprised by the lack of a ship waiting for them at the port. Michael Gibbs told Jacob that the Intrepid was an airship and that they would be flying to their destination. Jacob Gibbs admitted that he was skeptical of the idea of a man flying in the sky, believing that it is safer to travel by land or sea than it is by air. Michael told his brother that the Intrepid is manned by a fully trained crew and that it would be as vulnerable to the mercy of the wind as a hot air ballon before the two of them headed to the location of the airship. Once they arrived at the location, they headed to the Intrepid, Jacob impressed by the sight of the airship. Michael told his younger brother that Nathan Wright spared no expense on the expedition.

Upon boarding the vessel, Michael Gibbs escorted Jacob to the first available cabin before heading to meet with Nathan Wright. Jacob Gibbs got settled in and found a copy of Treasure Island. He began reading as the Intrepid departed from London, knowing that it would be a long trip to their destination.

Name
Michael Gibbs

Gender
Male

Age
42

Appearance
Brown hair, Green eyes, Mutton Chops, Wears a Derby, Hides his balding head with a Derby, Dressed in the fancy clothes expected of a businessman

Nationality
American

Personality
A self-made man who wants to make himself look more distinguished in the eyes of his peers. Due to Jacob Gibbs being the only other member of the family to not be content with being a farmer, Michael treats his brother with the upmost respect. He has joined the expedition to Oman in order to get his hands on any treasure he can get his hands on, namely any artifacts he can bring home.

Role
Associate of Nathan Wright

Skills
Marksman with pistols
Negotiation

Personal Belongings/Equipment
Boer 4 Bore Elephant Gun (Bought for the expedition)
Colt Single Action Army with Pearl grip

Background
Born the third of seven children, Michael Gibbs had great aspirations than living on a farm on the frontier. Michael left to make his fortune once his younger brother Jacob was old enough to join the military. He started by getting a job at an Ironworks, saving every penny he didn't spend. Michael Gibbs eventually got fed up with the low pay and quit his job. Needing employment, Michael began working on the railroad, preferring the cool air over the heat of the Ironworks. He continued working on the rails until he decided that it was time to go into business himself. Michael Gibbs took out a small loan and opened a textile shop, deciding that it would be a good change of pace from working with metal. Michael made a modest living from selling textiles and was able to pay back the loan. However, he decided that he wasn't making as much money as he liked, so he took out a loan and headed to New York to make it big. Little did he know that he would meet the man who would change his life.

Upon arriving in New York, Michael Gibbs asked for directions to the Stock Exchange, heading there once he knew where it was. Michael invested in Standard Oil and was approached by a strange man. When asked who he was, the strange man told him that his name was Natan Wright before asking if he would like to invest in a business venture. Michael Gibbs, not wanting to turn down a potentially lucrative deal, agreed to the offer. This arrangement proved his assumption correct and he made a fortune in oil money. Michael paid off his debt and went from the owner of a textile shop to the owner of a textile factory. However, despite this increase in wealth and marrying a wealthy bachelorette, he was still looked down upon by the established Upper Class for being from a poor family. It would be two years before he met Natan Wright again. Natan asked him if he was interested in joining an expedition to the lost continent of Omon, a land that, according to legend, held ancient treasure and a wilderness full of beasts that the world has never seen before. The mention of treasure was all it took for Michael to join on the condition that he take his younger brother Jacob Gibbs join him.

He found his younger brother behind the altar of a church and hugged him before asking him about his time in the military. Once Jacob Gibbs had finished telling him about the battles and those he killed and asked him why he came to the church, Michael told him about the expedition to the lost continent. Jacob Gibbs refused at first but changed his mind after being offered a share of the treasure that might be there. With his brother having agreed to join the expedition, Michael Gibbs headed to London with Jacob in tow. Once they were in Boston, they boarded the ship that would take them to London.

The two brothers arrived in London, Michael Gibbs telling Jacob that the Intrepid was an airship, that it had a fully trained crew, and that an airship was not as subject to the mercy of the wind as a hot air balloon before they headed to its location. They arrived and Jacob was impressed by the sight of the Intrepid. Michael told his younger brother that Natan had spared no expense for this expedition as they stared at it. Once they were onboard, Michael Gibbs escorted Jacob to the first available cabin before heading off to meet with Natan for the trip.