Ralph_Haas's page

About Ralph_Haas

Drive: Thirst for Knowledge

Occupation: Antiquarian

Occupational Benefits: Once per adventure and subject to the Keeper’s approval, you may have a text or relic that pertains to your current needs back at your shop. See Trail of Cthulhu, page 10, for more information and restrictions.

Pillars of Sanity:
• The aesthetic beauty of a well-crafted
object
• The amazing capacity of the intellect
to create order out of chaos
Sources of Stability:
• Simon Haas, your father
• Rebecca Haas, your mother

Background: As an autodidact, you came into this business sideways. Your
contemporaries all have PhDs, and you never bothered to graduate from elementary school. But their interests in relics and documents, as intense as they might be, are no match for your innate need to collect and understand as much as you can. It started, mundanely enough, with toy cars when you were an adolescent. You filled your parents’ spare room with them. When you had a complete set, the pursuit lost your interest, and you sold them for a fair profit. Then you did the same with pulp novels and soon after with rare erotica. Several lucrative hobbies later, you now contend with greedy aristocrats, historians, and museum curators to get your hands on every religious relic, cultural artifact, and timeworn document you can. And you’re better at it than any educated collector you’ve met.

Personality: You have a system. When your system works, uninterrupted, you’re in heaven. Life needs structure. Ritual. Psychiatrists, like Doctor Udko, have names for people like you. But that’s their system, not yours. You deal in the real world — with things. Things that can be organized, categorized, and placed with precision. Things can be studied and understood. They’re so much easier to deal with than people. Mind you, you can talk to people if you need them. If they have something you want, you’ve learned how to work their game. The quicker you tell them what they want to hear, the sooner they give up the goods, the sooner you can put those precious objects in their precious places.

Connection: When Janet Winston-Rogers held the estate sale for her late father’s belongings, you were there for every open hour. You scoured through his impressive collection of books — even picking up his Dorothy Astor collection for dirt cheap — and poured through every little trinket and art piece he left to the material world. You asked Janet about every little thing you could no matter how many times she rolled her eyes. But you must have said something that sparked her interest because late Sunday afternoon, she started asking questions about you— questions about your collection and your methods.

Academic Abilities: Accounting 1, Anthropology 1, Archaeology 1, Architecture* 2, Art History* 2, Biology 0, Cthulhu Mythos 0, Cryptography 1, Geology 0, History* 2, Languages* 2 (Hebrew, Greek), Law* 0, Library Use* 4, Medicine 0, Occult* 4, Physics 1, Theology 0

Interpersonal Abilities: Assess Honesty 0, Bargain* 2, Bureaucracy 0, Cop Talk 0, Credit Rating 2, Flattery 1, Interrogation 0, Intimidation 0, Oral History 1, Reassurance 0, Streetwise 0

Technical Abilities: Art 0, Astronomy 0, Chemistry 0, Craft 0, Evidence Collection 0, Forensics 0, Locksmith 0, Outdoorsman 0, Pharmacy 0, Photography 1

General Abilities Athletics 2, Conceal 3, Disguise 0, Driving 0, Electrical Repair 0, Explosives 0, Filch 5, Firearms 1, First Aid 3, Fleeing 8, Health 11, Hypnosis 0, Mechanical Repair 0, Piloting 0, Preparedness 4, Psychoanalysis 3, Riding 0, Sanity 8, Scuffling 4, Sense Trouble 8, Shadowing 2, Stability 8, Stealth 5, Weapons 0