Bailiff "Bailey" Discretion Sneed
Race: Wick
Birthday: The 27th of Roalis, 2699
Age: 21
FC: Charlie Rowe
Place of Origin: Vienda, Painted Ladies
Tribe: Seven Bells
Current Location: Vienda, Smike's End
Occupation: Runner and factotum to Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed
Player Name: Runcible Spoon
Relationships: Basil Ambrose ShrikeweedBirthday: The 27th of Roalis, 2699
Age: 21
FC: Charlie Rowe
Place of Origin: Vienda, Painted Ladies
Tribe: Seven Bells
Current Location: Vienda, Smike's End
Occupation: Runner and factotum to Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed
Player Name: Runcible Spoon
Physical Description
Slight, skinny, and possessed of perpetually unruly dark brown hair, like the quills on a galvanic hedgehog, Bailey sports the swaggery, confident air of a long practiced criminal. It is a perfectly accurate look. He was raised to the trade of thieves and fences/ The patchy, scruffy, fuzz that has begun to adorn his chin and cheeks only adds to the whole affair.
He had large, dark eyes and expressive eyebrows. These can give him either an innocent or cheeky look. He generally prefers the latter. Better in his line of work.
In dress he favors practical wear, generally well used but sturdy. He’s never had much money, and often makes repairs to his clothes. He’s no fine tailor, but he can darn a sock, sew up a tear, or mend a hem if needs be. Well-pieced-together might describe his overall sense of style.
Of the middle height, Bailey stands about five foot seven or eight, though sturdy boots make him appear slightly taller.
Personality
Bailey is cheeky, voluble, and cheerfully shifty. Though he tends to toss off sarcastic remarks, make snide commentary, or generally be a pain in the ass, Bailey is curiously loyal to those who treat him well and whom he finds interesting. He becomes rather protective of ‘his people’ and will try and do his best to see that no significant harm or misfortune befalls them.
He may be a criminal, a cheat, and a liar, be he is not altogether a bad egg. His preferred marks are the rich, the stupid, or the damned annoying.
There is also a strong romantic street in Bailey and he loves to think of himself as being part of the grand sweep of history. He wants his deeds to be remembered, at least among his own people, and to be held up as a proper member of the world of the Thieves.
Past & Present History
There are thieves in the world, those who steal and rob because chance, desperation, or ambition put them on that road. And then there are Thieves, born to the trade and the mysteries of larceny. Professionals descended from long lines of fences, housebreakers, second-story artists, and highwaymen. Among the wicks of Vienda, many of these hail from the crypto-tribe of the Seven Bells. Bailiff Discretion Sneed, was raised a proper scion of the Bells.
He was born to Lightfingered Lizzie Craddock and Baltholover Sneed some time in the late winter, more than fifteen and less than twenty years ago. (Bailey thinks he’s between seventeen and nineteen, be he’s not ever been sure). His early childhood was, despite what one might think, rather pleasant, even loving. The interconnected web of thieves and relatives provided a kind of expanded stability for the boy, and if anyone got too tired of him, well he could easily be fobbed off on an uncle, cousin, aunt, or other, more nameless, relative.
It was to his mother’s trade, the mysteries of pickpockets, that he was first initiated. A small boy can move quite unnoticed in a large and bustling crowd, and long training on his mother and others in the family gave him an advantage that first-generation thieves simply could not muster. By the time he was seven, he could pick a gent’s pocket, remove coins, watch, and important papers, plant them on some other mark, and leave with the most portable and valuable items.
He was good in a crowd, but he found he had a better aptitude for proper burglary. He was good with locks, with being quiet and patient, and could slip into a house at night and nick a fair quantity of swag before he raised the alarm. As he grew in both skill and years, he took to a particular line, stealing mostly papers, bank notes, and correspondence, and selling the contents to one of the professional blackmailers with whom he had a cordial relationship, or running small fiddles of his own.
It was amazing what one could do with a cove’s bank details, his chequebook, and decent scribble.
He took a cut from the blackmail payments, which kept him in sturdy clothes, good boots, and all the leek and mushroom pies and bitter ale he could want. From his other work, he fell into a crew of thieves, bootleg merchandise peddlers, con-artists, and fences, run by a man called Wilkes. Wilkes was a hard man, coarse and uncouth, but he had his fingers in a number of lucrative pies. Not a big player, Wilkes, but a man with connextions worth cultivating. The takings were good too, so a few beatings and the occasional threat on his life were at least off-set. For a few years, it seemed as though Bailey would settle in as Wilkes’ left hand and the go-to for burglarious work and short cons.
Then came the curious incident of the bureaucrat and the complicated locks.
About three years ago, on a dark and moonless night, Bailey tried to burgle the apartments of a relatively obscure civil servant, having learned that there were likely papers of value in the man’s possession. Papers that fancy coves with hyphenated names would pay handsomely for. So, one night he tried his luck. The windows were all locked and sealed, and Bailey took pride in breaking as few things as possible, so he slipped up the stairs to the main door. With some care he breached the first locks and found himself in a small anteroom, faced with even more fearsome locks upon the inner door. For almost an hour he tried those locks but to no avail. Then he tried to leave. Damnit if the outer door had not locked again. Locked in a way he could not pick.
There was nothing for it but to wait out the hours in that small space. He curled up in an alcove and awaited his fate. Prison, perhaps the rope at last. What occurred way quite a different matter.
The man, the bureaucrat whose home this was, eventually returned. He found Bailey asleep and dreaming fitful dreams in an alcove. Yet, instead of turning Bailey in for attempted burglary, he pressed him into service as an errand boy, runner, and eyes and ears on the street. Apparently, even bureaucrats needed his services.
So it was that he came into the service of Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed. He broke from Wilkes and took to his new employment easily enough. The pay was worse, but more regular, and Mr Shrike was a more lenient master. Bailey knew a good position when he saw it. For the last few years he has been Shrikeweed’s loyal, if somewhat unconventional, factotum.
Aptitude Skills
Mental
Average
Physical
Average
Social
Good
Average
Physical
Average
Social
Good
Focus Skills
Career and Income
Housing and Inventory
