Coins

Coins is one of the older residents of the Hole, an 18-year-old master thief and free runner. Free spirited, generous, and well-acquainted with the currency of gossip, Coins is one of the first members of the Hole to befriend Shade.

## Description

Coins is tall and lanky, with a mop of dark hair, hazel-brown eyes, and a wide mouth that is almost always smiling or laughing. He is not as strong as Anuk or Jig, but is extremely fast and skilled at free running (or, what we would call *parkour*). He typically wears an old waistcoat, trousers and sturdy boots, but sometimes, when he's had a particularly lucky day in the city, he will sport a new pocket watch or cravat — which he invariably passes on to one of the younger kids at the Hole as soon as he can.

## Personality

Coins has an open, friendly, and charismatic personality. He is laid back and cheerful, with an air of affected laziness when he isn't focusing on a job or mission. Being a thief and a master of social engineering, Coins lies as easily as he tells the truth, but he has made a private vow to never lie to those he calls his friends. Inquisitive by nature, Coins is the perfect sneak and gossip, always managing to find himself in the right place at the right time to hear everybody's whispered secrets.

Coins is loyal to his friends, almost to a fault. By nature he is not a leader, but is happy to follow as long as the person he follows has won his admiration and respect. There is little malice in Coins's personality, but when someone makes him angry, it simmers under the surface until something happens to break it out into the open. Though not a coward, Coins is not a fighter and avoids direct confrontation if he can — though he would happily knick a policeman's hat off his head if he had the opportunity.

He is a natural talker, and has the habit of making up words and phrases that make sense only to him.

## Background

Very little is known about Coins's background — where he came from, who his family was, or how he ended up wandering the streets at the age of seven. When he first arrived at the Hole, and (after extensive questioning by Kantian) revealed half the Hole rats' secrets, Kantian noted that the boy hoarded information like a miser hoards coins. This statement, along with the boy's propensity to always have a coin somewhere near his hands, was the origin of his tag, "Coins." If he had another name before he got to the Hole, he either never knew it, or never wanted to share it.

He arrived at the Hole scrawny and underfed, an immediate target for the tougher kids on the streets who valued violence as a way of establishing dominance. His defense mechanism was learning to climb buildings that none of the other kids could climb. Along with his natural ability to hide almost in plain sight, this skill allowed him to get close enough to people — including the street bullies — to hear their secrets. Coins quickly learned that secrets were an invaluable currency, and his best means of defending himself. When he proved he had a knack for charming information out of people directly — or sneaking their belongings off of them — he won a permanent place on Kantian's crew.

## Abilities

### Social Engineering

Coins had little schooling apart from what the streets taught him, but he has always been a student of human nature. Keenly observant, Coins has a masterful ability to read people and their moods, and know exactly how to talk to them to get what he wants — be that food, information, or money. The practice is mainly a game for him, a test of his abilities, so when the situation is risky or dangerous, or when something serious is on the line, Coins retreats from his usual loquacious self and becomes a watchful observer.

### Pickpocketing

Coins is a "quick finger" or master pick-pocketer. Combined with his ability to blend in with crowds and his talent for making people like him (and allow him to get close to them), there is almost nothing that Coins can't steal. He swears that he has never been caught in the act of pickpocketing but this isn't strictly true — he was caught trying to pickpocket Kantian's knife from its back holster shortly after he came to the Hole. Kantian didn't punish him, but put him in charge of teaching his skill to any of the Hole rats willing to learn.

### Free running

Because Coins is a master of free running, or *parkour,* he is the official courier of the Hole. He is known for being able to climb practically any building if he has just two minutes to look at it before he starts. Many of the buildings in Brinmark — particularly in the south streets — stand fairly close together, which makes them a perfect "high road" for Coins to travel when he doesn't want to be seen.

### Lock picking

Coins spent years trying to slip his first lock, before he final gave up and broke the lock open so he could see how it was put together. Fascinated by the mechanical marvel of a pin-and-tumbler lock, he began to take apart every possible kind of lock he could find and study the internal mechanisms. He put to use his skill with spatial reasoning and his fascination with *how things work* (incidentally, the same fascination that drives his ability to read *people*), and taught himself how to manipulate nearly every kind of lock currently in use in Cavnal. He is currently the "master slip" of the Hole, teaching the younger kids how to pick locks as they join the crew.