Tindarkin `Tiddlywinks' Windweaver

Tindarkin is a clever, good looking, somewhat charasmatic gnome with a
few minor `quirks' - most notably, he's curious.  To a fault.  No,
really; you might have thought that Casey liked to learn new things,
but Casey knows when to stop. :-)

In particular, Tindarkin, or `Tiddlywinks' (a childhood nickname that
stuck a bit too much for Tindarkin's taste, but he's an affable sort,
most of the time...) has developed a few, ah, unusual interests.
Science. Drugs. maybe even psionics...

I'm not sure how this `scientist' class is going to work out, Andy.  I
have a pretty good vision of the character, but I'm not sure where to
go from there.  

As you might have guessed from his `family name', Tindarkin is from a
line of strong mages - wizards, elementalists, etc, and so probably
had some training in magic at some point, but either was or wasn't
very good at it.  Does a psi-active gnome scientist work?  The way I
invision this character he'd be `into' anything he could find someone
to talk about, but his interests mostly develop along the lines he can
pursue, which I see as magic, science, psionics, and drugs/herbalism.
I imagine that he got into the last as a combination of magical
research, scientific research, and efforts to `help along' his mental
abilities.  In play, I imagine his mage abilities as sort of an
AD&D-style wild mage - his spells work most of the time, but there's
always the chance that wierd things (TM) might happen... ..especially
if he's been `experimenting' too much with his potions and powders.

I'm not sure if the psi angle is doable or not - I'm really not
familiar with the universe or the system.  I would guess that he'd be
doing it for research purposes, mostly, although I can see a few
angles that he might pursue - healing (psi and/or herbal),
boosting/faking/changing magic, perhaps a low-tech version of
telemech?  I also have this nice vision of him getting around via
teke/tekeshields most of the time.  It'd be really useful in helping
him work on his current secret scientific project - the most advanced
form of weaponry to ever grace the surface of the planet (NOT!).

The dart gun.

How's that again?  Well, Tindarkin is *only* 2'2", so `longbow' was
sort of out for him and his kind, even though the Palladium book
mentions that gnomes are `often' Rangers.  Crossbows work, but they're
too clumsy and slow to do a job with any finese - what you really need
is a delivery system that combines high accuracy and high rate of fire
in a more convienient bundle.  Sure, darts are small and do limited
amounts of damage, but a clever being can surmount those problems
(with appropriate herbs, powders, and potions, for instance... :-),
and besides, you've got to start somewhere. :-)

So, where I am:

I have a concept that needs some fleshing out.  Tindarkin is a
researcher, almost a Scholar, but that OCC isn't familiar to me and
doesn't seem to fit so well from the description.  He does get into
combat sometimes, mostly to try out his new inventions (unless he
needs to keep them very secret instead of just sort-of secret).  He
uses darts and is reasonably good with a knife and a short staff
(which isn't so short to him :-), although he doesn't tend to use them
in combat as much as in `normal day to day actions'.  He spends most
of his time researching magic, psionics, and science.  He also spends
a good bit of the time slightly high. :-)

I rolled some stats and aptitudes but haven't yet assigned them all.
I have a reasonably good idea which skills and such he's going to want
(wp dart, knife, maybe short staff; herbalism, poison use, poison id,
maybe some magic stuff, maybe some healing stuff, whatever the science
things are) but I need an OCC before I can proceed too much farther.
Here are the rolls I have:

(~yandros/project/rpg/Tindarkin/rolls)

  aptitudes: 6, 5, 3
  
  3  15 IQ
  2  10 ME
  3  14 MA
  2  12 PS
  4  23 PP
  4  23 PE
  4  19 PB
  2  10 Spd

you know, having `average' be `4.5' is pretty nice :-)

The assignments there aren't final, as I'm not entirely sure what's
most appropriate for the character - I know too little about the
system.  :-/ It seems like I'm going to want to pump up my IQ with one
of the extra die, but I'm not sure what all would be best suited
where.