The Robotic Fuller Brush Salesman (Of Walla Walla,
Washington)
Ethereal Spirit
Corporeal Forces: 0 Strength:
0 Agility: 0
Ethereal Forces: 3 Intelligence:
6 Precision: 6
Celestial Forces: 4 Will:
10 Perception:
6
Elements: Society: Culture (primary), Tech: Machines
(secondary)
Affinities: Glamour (moderate), Artifice (moderate)
Skills: Area Knowledge/6, (Blandine's Side of the
Marches), Dodge/4, Dreaming/6, Emote/3, Fighting/5, Savoir-Faire/3
Songs: Healing (Ethereal/5)
Dread: Not making a good impression/3 (3pt/level)
Image: a 1950's-style robot made out of burnished
pipes and riveted iron plates. There
are several gauges and mechanical readouts on its chest. The 'face' consists of two red light bulbs
and a speaker: the Robotic Fuller Brush Salesman (of Walla Walla, Washington)
has a remarkably pleasant baritone voice.
It usually carries a display case containing a vacuum cleaner with
several attachments.
"Good evening, Sir [or Ma'am], and how are you
tonight? I'm a salesman for the Fuller
Brush Company, of Walla Walla, Washington, and I'd like to take up just a
moment of your time to show you this amazing device that I am privileged,
absolutely privileged to sell. May I
come in?
"Lovely dream you have here, Sir [or Ma'am],
lovely indeed... but I'm sure that I'm not telling you anything new when
I say that keeping up a lovely dream takes work. Work and time - and who has time to waste these nights? Certainly not you, and that's why I think
that you'll like this handy-dandy device that I'm selling here tonight.
"Look at her: isn't she a beauty? She's the Ethero 9000 Power Vacuum Cleaner,
our top of the line product. There's
nothing that this gadget can't clean away: broken dreams, dusty regrets, lonely
echoes - it'll take them all up in a trice.
Let me show you: see that spot of neurosis on the floor over there? Now, I can see that you've tried to clean it
up, but it just won't budge. That's not
your fault - I could tell even from the outside that you're a conscientious
dreamer, or I wouldn't have wasted your time and mine by knocking on your
portal - but some stains just won't go without the proper tools. Let me just put on this attachment... here
we go... and there you go. See how
quickly that spot goes away? Amazing,
don't you think? Let's try it on some
of the other trouble spots while we're talking, and see how they go away just
as quickly.
"Now, I know what you're thinking: you're
thinking, 'Sure, but the problems they represent doesn't go away. That stain will come back, right after this
smooth-talking rascal's come and gone.'
That'd be quite right: it might.
It just might. I'm not here to
lie to you: the Fuller Brush Company (of Walla Walla, Washington) doesn't hire
liars. But you have to remember that
this is a dream. Psychologists tell us
that dream images can be helpful in resolving psychological traumas: it's all
about finding the right symbolic tool for the right symbolic job. We at the Fuller Brush Company (of Walla
Walla, Washington) make only the finest symbolic tools.
"Well, that was a mouthful, wasn't
it? I'll break it down for you: if you
purchase this fine, fine piece of merchandise, it's yours... and you can use it
to keep your dreams spic and span. No
more tedious dream hours trying to resolve meaningless nonsensical images: just
turn on the Ethero 9000 Power Vacuum Cleaner and watch them get sucked
away! It'll give you time: time to deal
with the big issues... or time to just properly explore this wonderful dreamscape
you've got here.
"Well, that's my spiel - and you can see how
the bright boys at the marketing department of the Fuller Brush Company (of
Walla Walla, Washington) have designed my patter to take up the time to clean
up the entire public part of your dreamscape.
See how clean it is, how refreshing?
That refreshment can be yours, if you act now. You just have to ask yourself, how much is your time worth to you
- and I'm sure that you'll come to the right conclusion. So, how about it?
"Glad to hear it, Sir [or Ma'am], glad to hear
it. You won't regret your
purchase. No, don't reach for your
wallet: your money's no good here. We
just ask that you believe in this fine, fine product - and think nicely of the
Fuller Brush Company (of Walla Walla, Washington) when you use it. If you do that, you'll be well on the way to
the dreamscape you deserve, and you'll make this humble vacuum cleaner salesman
very, very happy."
They've shown up recently, on Blandine's side of the
Marches at least (nobody knows whether they're on Beleth's, but people kind of
doubt it). The ethereals (alternatively
called Brushmen) are all pretty much like each other, but there's definitely a
bunch of them out there.
Weirdly enough, the devices that they 'sell'
actually work, thanks to the patter - which, come to think of it, is fairly
forthright. Someone who regularly
dreams of using an Ethero 9000 Power Vacuum Cleaner as a symbolic therapeutic
tool will soon have a noticeably cleaner dreamscape: this works out to a base
-2 to avoid being passively drawn into Beleth's side of the Marches. Servitors of Dreams have noted that the
Ethero 9000 Power Vacuum Cleaners have even been used successfully to
counteract active assaults by their opposite numbers. In game terms, its presence and use by a dreamer will reduce any
bonus that Servitors of Nightmares might have by 1; if a Servitor of Dreams
gets his or her hands on one 'native' to the dreamscape, they get a +2
to their combat rolls when fighting a demon or Hell-aligned ethereal in that
specific dreamscape.
This has made the Robotic Fuller Brush Salesmen (of
Walla Walla, Washington) entities of some interest to both sides. Interrogation (of varying levels of
intensity and/or civility) has so far proved unsatisfactory: Brushmen tend to
be polite and friendly to those willing to reciprocate, but they're remarkably
close-mouthed about how they're formed, or where they come from. Forcing one to talk simply results in the
ethereal to deliberately overload, essentially causing Mind Hits to itself
until it disperses. This suggests a
certain amount of fanaticism, which is doubly odd, considering how pleasant and
open-minded a Brushman can be on just about every other topic.
For right now, Dream's official position is that
Brushmen are not to be automatically targeted - no doubt partially due to the
fact that they do not seem to ever travel to the corporeal plane - while
Nightmares seems to waver between destroying them on sight and trying to trace
them back to their home Domain. Both
sides are pretty sure that they come from some sort of Domain, and are quite
keen to see just what kind of conditions exist there that would result in an
entity like a Brushman...