The Egyptian Adventure: Ramses and Nefret Emerson

Ramses is Amelia's and Prof. Emerson's son. His real name is Walter Peabody Emerson; but he is called Ramses by his family because he is, as his father said named for his father’s younger brother, he received the nickname "Ramses" from his father, who said of his baby, "in its belligerent appearance and imperious disposition it strongly resembled the Egyptian pharaoh, the second of that name, who had scattered enormous statues of himself all along the Nile." Ramses is Amelia and Radcliffe's only biological child, first described as "catastrophically precocious" and later dubbed "Akhu el-Efreet" ("Brother of Demons"). Extremely well-educated even from early childhood, he is also always getting into trouble.

"At the age of three Ramses had informed us that he did not need a nanny and would not have one…. I did not agree with him. He needed something—a stout healthy woman who had trained as a prison wardress, perhaps—but it had become more and more difficult to find nannies for Ramses. Presumably word had spread."

Ramses’s closest friend is David Todros, the grandson of the Emersons' "reis" Abdullah. Even though they are of different backgrounds, they are remarkably similar looking, a fact they use to their advantage. As teenagers he and David spend several months in the desert under the tutelage of a sheikh friend of the Emersons, learning the traditional skills of manhood: fighting, horseback riding, desert survival, and tracking. Ramses is excellent at languages, with tremendous emotional self-control. From a young age, he actively participates in his parents' archaeological activities as well as their involvement in detecting and bringing criminals to justice. During World War I, he reluctantly acts as a secret intelligence agent, with his best friend and blood brother, David Todros, a natural artist and Ramses' partner in mischief from an early age.

 Ramses and David off to investigate: Of course they have told no one where they are going.

His precocity, and skill at languages, mimicry, and disguise, lead some older and more superstitious Egyptians to credit him with supernatural abilities, leading to his nickname, "Akhu el-Efreet", "Brother of Demons". The mischief he was involved in as a child; his ability to blend into crowds using native dress and disguises; his emotional self-control that scares the dickens out of bad guys and makes them wet their pants; his lack of fear and his affinity for cats all lead to this title Ramses will play on this reputation to thwart evil in this world. Though a self-proclaimed pacifist, Ramses is highly proficient in fighting and weapon's skills - though as a last resort. His true love has always been Nefret Forth, who captured him the moment they first met, when he was only ten which evolves into a mature love over the course of years. After an extremely long wait, she falls just as passionately in love with him, and after several monumental misunderstandings, they are married. 

 Ramses in disguise.

Name: Walter "Ramses" Emerson the "Brother of Demons" (if he says it, he means it)

Move: 6"
Pluck: 2+

Speed: +2

Fighting Value: +4

Shooting Value: +3 

Talents: Fearless, Intuitive, Iron Will, Leadership +2, Lightning Draw (Fighting knife), Martial Artist, Stealthy, Terrifying, Tough, Skirmisher, Night Eyes

Basic Equipment: Pistol, Fighting Knife, Magneto Static Waistcoat
Note on Basic Equipment: Ramses can also purchase any Fighting (ordinary) or Shooting (ordinary), except a machine gun, if the costs are paid. He may also purchase a Horse (Arabian of course).

Armor: 9

Cost: 88

Ramses can also use the Talents Master of Disguise, Part of the Crowd, Cavalryman, and Trick Riding, if the appropriate points are paid. Ramses can be a force of nature against evil doers if his gander is up; especially if native Egyptians, the poor, children, and other peoples that are oppressed.

Nefret provided insight to real Egyptologists instead of (according to Professor Emerson) %##@ dang journalists.

Nefret Emerson (nee Forth) is a British girl who was abducted in early childhood by a "lost tribe" of Africans living in the Sudan desert. The Emersons discovered her when they went to investigate the lost tribe. The settlement seems to have developed from a lost tribe of Cush and preserves many of the customs and lore that Amelia and Emerson have only read about. During a royal power struggle, they rescued and adopted her, and later Ramses and she get married. Because of her beauty and kindness (she has followed in Amelia's footsteps and become a doctor for the Egyptians), she is called by their Egyptian friends "Light of Egypt." This is probably in tribute to her hair and her vibrancy. Her favorite topic is mummies, which chimes well with her medical degree. Her edge is a psychic link with Ramses that lets her know when he is in imminent danger; it also spills out into a general sympathy that lets her tame horses, dogs, and cats, feed sparrows from her hand at a cafe table, and may be another reason for her widespread popularity with the Egyptian poor. As a young woman, she was often involved in the escapades of Ramses and David.

Name: Nefret Emerson the "Light of Egypt"

Move: 6"
Pluck: 3+

Speed: 0

Fighting Value: +1

Shooting Value: +3 

Talents: Fearless, Medic, Intuitive, Unearthly Beauty.
Basic Equipment: Magneto Static Waistcoat, Pistol, Knife

Armor: 9

Cost:49

 Nefret helping Amelia on a dig.

The Egyptian Adventure: Professor Emerson

"Father despises everyone quite indiscriminately and without prejudice - the only characteristics that mattered to him were competence, loyalty and honesty." Ramses Emerson describing his father,  Professor Radcliffe Archibald Emerson AKA Abu Shitaim, "Father of Curses."

Professor Radcliffe Archibald Emerson, M.A, Ox., D,C.L. (Ox.), L.L.D. (Edinburgh), F.B.A., FRS, FRGS, MAPS, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and Member of the American Philosophical Society is the husband of Amelia Peabody. He is also the father of Walter Peabody "Ramses" Emerson.

What the #$^&*#@ is Ramses up to now?

He is an Egyptologist (the greatest of this age or any age) who is typically addressed as Professor, although he hates his first name and prefers to be called "Emerson." For his explosive temper and dynamic use of language, his Egyptian friends and employees have nicknamed him Abu Shitaim, "Father of Curses".

Emerson is a dynamic man of action, but one with great tenderness toward his family and friends. He is short-tempered and irascible, but his family and friends hardly ever take notice, knowing he means no harm. However, he has shown genuine anger and a willingness to use violence often enough to make him feared by all the petty criminals and crooked antiques dealers in Egypt. He is also notorious for losing his hats and his disdain for formal dress.

 No @%$^&# grave robber dressed like a $%&*#@! mummy will ruin my dig!

Emerson remains charmingly oblivious to his few character flaws. He sees himself as the only rational, even-tempered person in his family. He is intolerant of bureaucracy and an advocate of careful methods of excavation and research. 

 Peabody and Emerson.

Here are some stats for Professor Emerson using the 1st Edition of In Her Majesty's Name which can be easily converted to other Pulp or Colonial skirmish games:

Name: Professor Emerson "Father of Curses"

Move: 6"
Pluck: 3+

Leadership: +2

Speed: +1

Fighting Value: +3

Shooting Value: +4 (See the spear throw in The Last Camel Died at Noon)

Talents: Berserker, Erudite Wit (He's not known as the "Father of Curses" for nothing!), Fanatic, Fearless, Impervious (due to his intellect and stubbornness, he doesn't believe in Mystical Powers, thus they do not exist), Inspirational, Martial Artist, Terrifying (except to mummies, monsters and other circumstances or creatures he does not believe in), Tough

Basic Equipment: Pistol, Fighting Knife, Magneto Static Waistcoat, Carbide Lamp
Note on Basic Equipment: Emerson can also purchase any Fighting (ordinary) or Shooting (ordinary), except a machine gun, if the costs are paid. Don't let him drive a car.

Armor: 9

Cost: 88

 "Run for your lives! It is Abu Shitaim!"

Independence Day

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.