Sidney Price

Sidney Price

"Normally, I would not even have a book like this available for purchase. I am, as it happens, quite the bibliophile myself and such a rare find - a book that once graced the shelf of Cornelius Agrippa - would likely find pride of place in my own library. Times being what they are, however, my trials and tribulations translate into your triumph. I can have the book delivered to you day after tomorrow, just so long as I have received payment. Are we agreed?"

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

He is in good health, with the exception of his left leg, which does not bend when he walks.

Body Features

As thin as Sidney appears in his suits, one might suspect that, beneath them, he is positively gaunt. From his long and narrow head to his long and narrow fingers to his similarly long and narrow legs, Sidney presents as a man who could easily fit down a sewer drain. While his gait is unsteady, his hands are remarkably deft, and he's shown a true talent for the piano, with an odd straight-fingered playstyle that makes his hands seem to fan when he plays.

Facial Features

His slicked-back hair, if anything, makes the narrowness of his face more severe, and the thin moustache that shadows his upper lip does nothing to ameliorate the impression. Still, in the right light, or if he'd just add five pounds or so, there would be something of a matinee idol aura to him.

Physical quirks

He never lets others see his left leg, keeping to trousers and never engaging in swimming or other activities where he would have to show it off. He walks with the aid of a cane, though he can keep a good pace for brief stretches.

Apparel & Accessories

Sidney's wardrobe is the stuff of faded middle-class glory: decent suits that have begun to go at the cuffs and elbows.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Sidney is a creature of London, leaving only to go fight in The Great War, get his leg shattered in a car wreck, and come home. He avoids speaking overmuch of his family, though he does prove far more familiar with Shoreditch than with other parts of the city.

Employment

Sidney's business card reads "catalogue agent," but if there is a catalogue he works from, it is a list of humans and the failings that will separate them from their hard-earned (or inherited, or stolen) money.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Pryce has been involved in two major deals in the last three years, either of which should have been enough for him to reopen his bookshop. He arranged for a second edition of De Vermis Mysteriis to be delivered from its former home in the library of an obscure Albanian landlord to Number 3 Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater - headquarters of the Fraternity of the Inner Light. Dion Fortune's backers reportedly paid him in gold. His other deal is less well-known, but is rumored to involve a number of Hebrew texts that allowed Crowley to discredit de Laurence's reprint of the Greater Key of Solomon.

Failures & Embarrassments

Pryce Booksellers opened in 1919 and lasted 10 years before his books were seized and he was thrown out of the property for being in arrears on both rent and taxes. He has stopped avoiding the police, so it may be presumed he's caught up on the taxes, but the money of his two windfalls seems to have disappeared in smoke before he could use it to reopen the shop.

Intellectual Characteristics

Sidney is a man who knows the angles, and a student of human nature. Though his grammar and vocabulary show a lack of formal education, he can still affect an air of an upper class aristocrat, should a particular fish need that sort of bait. He is, perhaps, an odd definition, but a definition nonetheless, of "low cunning."

Morality & Philosophy

Sidney keeps his word to his fellow hustlers - reputation is important to him. That said, he has an unfortunate tendency to overestimate his own ability to manage a situation, and, like many con men before him, is quite sure of his own immunity to being conned in return.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

In his cups, Sidney talks about reopening his bookshop, remembering the smell of dust, paper, and tea fondly. Sober, however, he dismisses such talk cynically, and is eager to plan his next caper.

Year of Birth

1887 47 Years old

Eyes

Dark brown

Hair

Black and slicked back

Height

5'10"

Weight

155

Quotes & Catchphrases

"What say you to a little honest thievery?"