Eliza McCray

Eliza Jean McCray

Eliza McCray is an up-and-coming technologist - a sort of mage whose connection to the arcane forces of the world arise from 'craft-work,' the pursuit of magic as an applied science through the creation of clockwork devices and alchemical formulations. In The Snake Gulch Singularity, Ms. McCray serves as a ranking member of The Arbiters, where her knowledge of science, engineering, and the occult are frequently instrumental to combatting threats from beyond the boundaries of the Cosmic Archipelago.

Physical Description

Physical quirks

An accident involving caustic chemicals (see Mental Trauma) left Ms. McCray with some long-term eye damage. The chemicals eroded and discolored the corneas of both of her eyes, though the effect is more pronounced in her left eye than her right. The damage is not visible from the outside except upon an optometrist's examination, but she does sometimes experience difficulty with glare and blurriness. A project to develop a clarifying opthalmic salve is consistently on her to-do list, but it keeps getting pushed back in favor of other pursuits.

Specialized Equipment

In the field, Eliza is never seen without a tough leather apron, bandolier full of chemical vials, and belt pouches full of small tools. She also typically carries between one and three difficult to describe mechanical devices that generally take the form of gauntlets, firearms, or other pieces of armor. These strange assemblages of wood, metal, leather, and glass are craft-work devices that produce effects most would attribute to straight-up sorcery. When a device can't take care of a situation, Eliza is just as likely to throw or consume a vial from her belt to achieve the desired effect.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Eliza McCray was born in a world in the Cosmic Archipelago where magic existed, but also where this magic was understood primarily through reason and experimentation. Though she carries the surname of her Scottish great grandfather, Eliza was born and grew up in her world's version of France and draws mostly from that cultural milieu. The Snake Gultch Singularity pulled her in when she traveled to her world's verison of the United States to join her American counterparts in studying the blossoming craft-work subspecialization of pyromotive aqueomancy (also known as 'steam-work').

Gender Identity

Eliza is often described as a tomboy, but this is a product of contemporary gender norms with regards to her line of work rather than any aesthetic or behavioral choice on her part. Aside from exploits like cooking up a vaporous acid to dissolve prospector spectres, building gauntlets that can flash-fry roving goblin banditos with directed bolts of lighting, or rigging up a clockwork prosthesis for the mayor's prized racing horse, Eliza is unmistakeably feminine.

Sexuality

Though her chosen speciality lies somewhat outside the gender norms of her native world in the Cosmic Archipelago, Eliza McCray is more orthodox in her tastes when it comes to men. She finds Jonah Wheatstraw physically attractive, but recognizes that the acute mental trauma that shapes his assumed cowboy-dandy personality makes him unsuitable for a long-term relationship unless and until he comes to a resolution. Hudson Quaking-Sage has the right combination of intellectual complexity, humor, and rugged good looks for Eliza's tastes, but the alien nature of his yokai heritage mean that pursuing a relationship with him raises difficult philosophical questions that she isn't ready to contemplate. Tau, as a non-humanoid disintered in 'monkey affairs,' patiently serves as Eliza's sounding board when she has to talk herself out of thinking about 'those boys' and focus on whatever mission The Arbiters presently find themselves mired in.

Education

Ms. McCray was an avid reader from a young age and took readily to the study of craft-work techniques. She would take apart any clockwork device left in her room, study the components, then put them back together to see if she could make them work again. Her father, Dr. Pierre McCray of the Paris Craft-Work Faculty, feared that she would be misunderstood for her tomboyish pursuit but was nevertheless proud to foster her intellectual development in whatever way he could. When Eliza came of age, Pierre fought his fellow Faculty to earn her a place in the university, where she went on to earn a degree in craft-work engineering despite the harumphing of some of her fellows.

Employment

Among The Arbiters, Eliza McCray fills a number of interrelated roles related to intellectual and technological pursuits. She is a competent lockpicker and has experience in creating, setting, and disabling traps of all sorts, including explosive devices. Her knowledge of chemistry, mechanical engineering, and associated crafts makes her extremely versatile. When The Arbiters need a specific item to finish a mission, they have to make a cost-benefit analysis to determine where best to obtain it; if properly forwarned, Eliza can often whip up a specialized consumable, tool, or device at a fraction of the cost of other craftspeople, but commonplace items might be better acquired from the general store or mail-order catalogue.
Eliza's broad knowledge base makes her useful to the team as an advisor, especially for scientific matters. Importantly, because of the unique natural laws of Eliza's world of origin amongst the Cosmic Archipelago, 'scientific matters' include some matters of the occult, including ectoplasmic, transmutative, and illusory effects. Deeper questions of spirituality and cosmology are better directed at Hudson Quaking-Sage, priests, or medicine men as appropriate for the topic at hand, but, in general, Eliza can probably come up with and artifice to interact with something as long as she can see it.

Mental Trauma

Eliza's left eye still twitches when she smells vinegar after an incident when her lab apparatus sprayed its contents into her face. Luckily, she had a bucket of wash solution prepared for just such an incident, but her eyes were sore and red for a week afterwards and she never quite got over the possibility that she might have been blinded by the incident.

Personality Characteristics

Savvies & Ineptitudes

Aside from her sterling intellect, Eliza is also known to have a decent throwing arm and is an avid fan of the America's favorite pasttime: baseball. Her acumen sees the most use in throwing grenade-like weapons, like alchemical vials and craft-work field projectors, but Eliza also uses it in her down time to play amateur ball with some of the locals. The Snake Gulch Singularity isn't populated densely enough to support any major teams, but, for Eliza, the fun is in the playing rather than the prestige.

Alignment

Neutral Good

Species

Human

Ethnicity

French

Age

26

Sex

Female

Eyes

Green

Hair

Red

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Light with freckles

Aligned Organization

The Arbiters

3.5e

Human Beguiler 2/Human Paragon 3/Gnome Artificer 10/Combat Trapsmith 5

BCGR

seIpa, Applied Science, Craft, Blast, Transmute, Illusion, Search, Manipulate Mechanism