Casting Shadows

This series of posts is intended to provide a quickly usable setting for busy GMs looking to run Daring Tales of Adventure or Hollow Earth Expedition.   Each serial installment for the setting, builds on, connects to, or in some way embellishes those that have gone before. Story seeds are liberally strewn throughout, and each entry features a location and a typical person to encounter there.

 This Serial Setting for the Ubiquity Roleplaying System focuses on the mysterious Windlet Islands, and those who make them their home.

9. The Gast Procurement and Development Company, Windlet Settlement, Greater Windlet Island

Known to all on the islands,to each of its employees, and to the majority of its regular customers and contractors as ‘The Company,’ this privately-owned, international behemoth operates under the public credo of leaving things in better condition than that in which they were found. Although its track record on the implementation of that method of operation is uneven among its many holdings worldwide, none can gainsay its truth here.

The company, under the leadership of John Irving Gast Sr, grandfather and spiritual brother of the current owner and Administrator, John Ambrose Gast expanded from a mere shipping concern to one dealing in a constantly shifting and growing import/export business – trading in exotic new delicacies from exotic new locales, as well as developing and marketing natural resources. To keep its operation lean, effective, and nimble, the Company also dabbles in the latest transportation technologies through grants, and sponsorships in exchange for special considerations on production models. The Company maintains its own private facilities all over the world and charts its own shipping routes for both air and sea travel, in accordance with the secretive practices of its 17th century founder, Johann Alaric Gast, who is rumoured to have had a love/hate relationship with piracy.

Windlet Settlement was original founded to support the Company’s procurement of exotic woods and herbs, but has grown to include a steady export of precious and semi-precious material of both academic and commercial natures. The majority of Greater Windlet Island’s interior has been fenced off by a significant system of fences and defensible roadways, to preserve as much of the island’s original condition as possible, and an unusually progressive preservationist attitude of sustained development has been implemented almost since operations were first begun here. Both Greater Windlet Island and Lysette Isle were obtained by an Act of the US Congress in the 1850s and propietorship subsequently handed over to the Company. Since that time, ownership has been transferred to the Company, with provisions for wartime defence, and they have since ensured that the recognition of their territorial claims have been duly ratified by other nations with which they do business.

This outpost of the Company has grown into a vibrant, multi-cultural community, which serves as a routine stop-over for its surface and air transportation fleets, and a hub for its cargo concerns. In recent years, facilities for the manufacturing of a variety of products, the refinishing and restoration of cultural artifacts, and the creation of new works of indigenous art, have sprung up. Not long after the current Administrator took the reigns of the company he began to spend more than 6 months per year on the islands. While not a common sight among the residents, he is known, and known to be wholly invested in the ongoing health of the community. 

Usual Characters: Monica Setzer

Ms. Setzer has only recently arrived, but has been working for the company’s new acquisitions department for 6 years, specializing in the authentication of antiquities – primarily from China and Northern Asia. When asked why, with her specialty, she would be relocated here as opposed to Shanghai or Hong Kong, she laughs and indicates the beaches, rephrasing the questions as, “Who wouldn’t want to be relocated here?”  but going on to remind the inquisitors that as more and more of the Company’s cargo is being routed through this region, it is the most efficient place for here to be now.

Ms. Setzer is the public face of the Company for many, and she occupies a position as VP in the very important Acquisitions Department. Harvard Educated and Oxford Re-Educated as she likes to say, she hopes to pioneer a new, global outlook in the world of business – in fear of a rise of nameless, faceless, and ultimately piratical companies out to ravage anyone and everyone in the pursuit of profit.

Just entering middle age, and still very active as a swimmer, sailor, and climber, Ms. Setzer is fit, energetic, and proud of her endurance. She is tough, and can mix it up with rough and tumble men, but never forgets that she is still a lady. She can seem at home in a steamy jungle, covered in mud and animal blood, gliding across a ballroom floor, or making a quick and decisive ‘kill’ in the boardroom. She keeps her auburn hair in a sporty bob, and is currently wrestling with the need to wear glasses, and the inconveniences those glasses bring to an active person.  She has sharp features, clear skin, and clever hands. Barely visible along the left side of her neck and down her back, often covered by strategically arranged clothes, collars, and scarves, etc is a ring of oblong scars which resembles nothing more than some enormous animal bite. It is not discussed.

She wears a wedding ring, but is referred to as Miss, as she holds one of the highest positions in the Company, on the islands, she is not generally approached with romantic intent. Many of the island women think this is a terrible waste. In their eyes, someone so full of life and talent should be a mother in her prime.

Rumours:

Potentially heard anywhere on either island, or in Company holdings abroad

• She is famous world round for her business acumen
• She once tossed a disrespectful juniour partner in New York out of a 5th storey window for groping her
• She went on safari in Africa, but something terrible happened – she was missing for months
• She is the Administrator’s first choice for backup in difficult negotiations
• She is fluent in many European languages as well as her major area of expertise: Chinese dialects
• She routinely attends the weapons and survival courses sponsored by the Company for its security teams
• Her predecessor retired early to make way for her in the company due to his high opinion of her skills
• She has a very impressive knowledge of geology and seems to be an expert on the volcanic history of the islands

Usual Characters: Administrator Gast

John Gast, known to be the 6th of some variation of that name in his family line, is the current Administrator and sole owner of the immense Gast Procurement and Development Company. It is said that at a Company Picnic, while looking at the banner strung above the baseball diamond, he quipped, “If I were to have the chance to revise anything my forebears did, it would be to have chosen a different name for this company.”

His hair is kept in a military cut due to the heat, and his tan shows that while he may love the outdoors, his family background is from a place which saw more snow than sun. Active and unfailingly energetic, he does not necessarily strike observers as being an outdoorsman, despite his accomplishments as a scout in the war, and as an explorer and world traveller. His eyes are a brilliant blue, which cannot hide the intelligence of their owner. His nose, broken more than once, is proud – if somewhat bent. He has broad, powerful shoulders and arms, but delicate, highly dextrous hands. He dresses well, but with an eye toward comfort – often choosing to wear the strong fabrics more suited to a life on the trail than to life at a board table.

The Administrator, for that is how he is most commonly addressed, lives with his family of 3, an enormous dog, and a constantly changing population of scientists and visiting scholars in his manor. The manor, forming the innermost edge of the Company’s heavily patrolled Perimeter Fence, has rooms for up to 20 guest researchers, and the staff to support them, but it is well-known that the Administrator and his family live in a small, separate apartment on the third floor with just enough space for each of them… and the dog.

The Administrator seems to try hard to get out to community events and help out in times of need and community concern. He and the dog, Cadmius, are often seen walking the beaches together at sunset, and he and his wife, Hazel, are common sights at ship arrivals, festivals, and ceremonies. The children are rarely seen off Company property, but are known to be vivacious and curious…but not bad. Their names are John, Joan, and Brett, and they are a well-spoken, well-educated, and healthy trio of youngsters between the ages of 9 and 12.

Rumours:

Potentially heard anywhere:

• He is wise beyond his years, and respectful too
• He was privately educated, and never ceases his quest to learn and teach
• He loves the islands and would live on them full-time if he could
• He spends much of his time in the interior, looking for something
• He spends much of his time protecting what he has found from someone 
• He is considering closing the port to German and Japanese vessels
• He is having a nearby island surveyed to prepare it as a military base for the US
•  He remembers the names and faces of everyone he meets

Truths:

Soon, much will be revealed!

Statistics:

But not yet!

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