Group of characters needed

[ffutures]

I need a group of characters for Earth Girls Aren't Easy, which I'll be running on Saturday. Everything that follows is spoilers, don't read on if you plan on playing.



Basically, the plot is "Heroine seeks the truth about her father's death." He owned a gold mine on Titan, and died under mysterious circumstances. It's going to be played as a melodrama, with various characters conforming to melodramatic archetypes, except I'll be messing with gender roles a little

So far I have

Romantic Heroine - owns the mine now, wants to know what happened to her father. She is a typical romantic heroine, but a little tougher than most, and has had the sense to hire

The Antiheroine - a hardboiled detective who believes in solving problems with her fists, gun, etc. but doesn't have a lot of experience of working off Earth. She won't be sweeping the heroine off her feet, because this is 1930s SF and neither of them is gay. I'm thinking of a Michelle Hammer type, not quite a psychopath but rather too willing to use violence.

Next we have the Homme Fatale (is this the right term?) - AKA Gold Digger of 2115. He's planning to woo the heiress and (hopefully) parlay their romance into a ticket back to Earth and a luxurious lifestyle.

Meanwhile The Villain is planning his next evil move. This is pretty much the same as above, marry the heiress. Except that this gives him control of the mine, and will leave him free to bump her off at a later date and inherit.

I may put a true hero in there too, someone who will end up getting the girl and saving the day, and possibly a cute kid who will want to play matchmaker.

Any other suggestions?

Comments

[liliaeth]

I have to say that this might be just me, but I think I'd personally prefer the story with no 'true hero' showing up. I always prefer for the 'bad boy' to either go straight and reform or even better, for the girl to save herself and become her own hero. A man coming in and saving the day is just so... boringly cliché.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I'm not thinking of a "sweep her off her feet" scenario, Weinbaum's stories weren't like that. If I put one in there at all the heroine will probably end up rescuing him or something!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

And I'm more likely to have the hero fall in love with the private eye!

[liliaeth]

now that sounds interesting :-)

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

Since this sounds a bit like a Western, you might want to consider the following:

The Saloon Girl With a Heart of Gold: The "working girl" down at the local watering hole/tavern/saloon who pines after the Homme Fatale.

The Sheriff: He's either highly competent and doesn't hold with any misdeeds, he's gutless wonder that only does his job when forced to, or he's in the pay of the Villain.

The Sky Pilot: The local priest, typically a young man who turned to the cloth after a life of sin. Highly practical and a dab hand with a gun when forced to use one (again).

The Gunslinger She's a gun for hire and she'll work for whoever pays her the most.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The last one is the private eye, except she stays bought.

[pwilkinson.livejournal.com]

So the Romantic Heroine owns the mine - but who, if anyone, is actually mining the gold? Unless, of course, it's the Homme Fatale - but I rather assume that he is not a Gold Digger in that sense.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

One of the problems is that the mine isn't being operated properly - most people are obsessed with finding flame gems, which are incredibly valuable so long as they stay rare. But unfortunately Weinbaum describes someone learning how to culture them, so that's going to be a bit of a problem real soon now...

L'Homme Fatale

[dsample.livejournal.com]

For info on l'homme fatale see: http://www.observer.com/2008/o2/beware-l-homme-fatale

Re: L'Homme Fatale

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - in the end I didn't go that route, the murder mystery side of the plot took over, but it might have been interesting.