Christian Leyton
From Brass Goggles
Name : Christian Leyton
Age : 27
Nationality (place of birth) : British (Shrewsbury, Shropshire)
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Physical appearance
Christian is a well-dressed and intelligent, if slightly distracted-looking, gentleman. His speech and habit of pointedly ignoring anything he finds distasteful mark him out as well-bred and a snob. He usually wears smoked glasses on account of his distaste for bright light, a result of his nocturnal habits. Though he is only 6ft, his slight build makes him seem taller than he is and he maintains this illusion by attempting to keep a clear region around himself.
Profession
In his own words, Leyton is a gentleman-philosopher. In actual fact, he has certain family investments which his accountant deals with and he does not fully understand. It involves the rather vulgar (to his mind) transfer of money on an almost weekly basis from one resource or currency to another. Like most gently-born men, he just doesn't care much as long as it is there when he needs it.
Character
Christian is a gentleman who understands only half of what is going on and is learning not to pretend that the other half does not exist. What he does understand is science, which he is currently trying to use to debunk the ridiculous stories he has heard of common people using 'magic'. His recent experiences have not been altogether encouraging, but rather than accepting the mysticism of the masses, he is convinced that it is simply a new science. Just as gunpowder must seem 'magic' to those of uncivilised nations, so too is magic just a science that the commoners are using without understanding.
As a result, he has picked up some basic understanding of certain 'vulgar' magics. As a gentleman, he performs his experiments in darkened rooms out of the way where he will offend of (heavens forbid) upset those of his own class.
Of late, however, he has been tempted to practise those peasant arts simply for convenience. After all, it would not do for a gentleman to be without a light for his cigars simply because he has misplaced his lucifers...
Biography
Born in Shropshire, Christian knew his parents as distant figures who would sit at the dinner table with his, but take little or no interest in him beyond that. He was raised by a succession of nurses, tutors and instructors until such time as he could be packed away to a boarding school at the opposite end of the country.
He never learnt the simple trick of obeying the teaching staff, nor trying to fit in with other boys. As a result, he found his school-life unpleasant and found joy only in tormenting the poorer and younger boys. He was lucky that he was apt enough at the sciences to earn a protector in the Chemistry Master, who ensured that he was able to claim at least one strong aptitude.
His time in Wadham College at Oxford was spent largely avoiding the faculty and laboratories. His distaste for academia had not prevented him from entering, but it left him disinclined to participate. He was lucky to find a group of like-minded fellows and together they set out to make themselves positively disreputable, while staying on the right side of university policy. They couched their clumsy studies of alchemy in the trappings of respectable chemistry, displayed great piety in the chapel to help pass off their study of 'magic' as a fervent desire to 'know thine enemy' and generally sought to confound their detractors.
As Leyton's peers delved deeper into the mysteries of the metaphysical, he himself drew back as he failed to see any truth beneath the rituals. He discovered a great need to rationalise the irrational and threw himself into his studies of chemistry and even spent the time to give himself a grounding in basic engineering to balance out the dry nature of pure science.
He graduated as a bachelor of science, avoided gaol long enough to be awarded his Master's degree, and then set out for the primitive parts of Europe to study their vulgar folklore.
And then, one day he returned to England and boarded a train bound for London, guided by instructions from Whitehall and an old man's prophecy.
His current activities have left him as a civilian advisor on the airship St. Elmo as he tries to understand his role in the uncertain future.
See STEAM LONDON: Realms of Aether for his current adventures.
