(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/e/e1/Firefly_RPG_Hope.jpg)<br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">Hope Diamond, Scoundrel</span></span><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Character Sheet</div><div class="spoiler_body">Attributes:<br/>Mental D8<br/>Physical D6<br/>Social D10<br/><br/>Skills (Specialties):<br/>Craft D6<br/>Fly D6<br/>Focus D6<br/>Know D8 (Streetwise)<br/>Influence D10<br/>Notice D8<br/>Operate D6<br/>Perform D10 (Showmanship)<br/>Sneak D8<br/>Trick D12 (Fast Talk, Sleight of Hand)<br/><br/>Distinctions:<br/>Alluring D8<br/>Forked Tongue D8<br/>Things Don't Go Smooth D8<br/><br/>Signature Assets:<br/>Spartacus the Parrot D6<br/>Mother's Necklace D6<br/></div></div><br/><br/>Hope stopped by the inevitable card game on her way to their table.  Actually, it wasn't at all on the way - it was in the back room, the smoke and dim lighting separated by an open set of double doors.  She pulled a chair up with a smile and the flash of bills.  She won a couple rounds, lost a couple more, and eyed up her mark.  Roderick claimed he was a rancher, just arrived on planet, but the fancy pocket watch, slick accent and clean nails marked him as a corporate opportunist.  It was handy; Hope didn't find herself troubled with moral dilemmas as a rule, but she tended to avoid them just in case.<br/><br/>If she wanted to, Hope could run the table easily enough, probably without even having to cheat.  The entire game was based on bluffs and she was the best liar this side of Earth that Was.  No, the problem was inevitably that you had to walk away from the table, and rough men didn't take kindly to that when you held all their money.<br/><br/>So today she was letting someone else win.  He already had a nice pile of bills piled in front of him like a boast while the others started to notice his pretentious enunciation and boorish grin.  During her deals she could slip him a nice hand, and she made sure to lose at the right time.  The turning point came when he began to explain his success stemmed from a better education, which led to a more facile and capable mind.<br/><br/>"Psst," Hope whispered to him, caressing her silver locket as she draped herself over his arm. "You prolly oughta put all that cash in yer billfold, mister.  Rough folks around here!"  He nodded gratefully, like the sap he was, and scooped up the mess from the table.  Four other pairs of envious, resentful eyes tracked its course with a few distrustful mutters. While that had their attention, Hope slipped the two extra aces beneath his coaster, then announced she was out and shouted to the bartender for a round of drinks for the table as a farewell: "Can't have none o' y'all sayin' I'm a poor loser!" she happily slurred.  Everyone at the table grinned at her, then turned to call out their orders.  With their backs turned she started to walk away, stumbled slightly into Roderick, giggling and biting her lip flirtatiously as she lifted his packed billfold and replaced it with two others she'd stolen earlier.<br/><br/>A dozen steps away and the waitress stopped by, clearing the empty glasses to make room for the new round, which was exactly when a coaster was nudged to the side.<br/><br/>The art of grifting, Hope would one day write in her memoirs between chapters of sultry romance and daring adventures, was to let your marks create their own story.  If you had to actually tell the sap you were the lost princess Anastasia, last seen fleeing New Vienna aboard the gunship Pheonix as Alliance cruisers assassinated the Ducal family from orbit, you weren't going to end well.  They'd resist.  They'd try to question you, or want something from you, or even actually know the Princess' bones had been recovered from orbit five years ago.  But a hint of noble accent; the flash of a maltese cross; a scar earned fleeing the palace, and her whole family dead...in the end she'd be insisting she wasn't anyone at all as the nobs fawned over her with dreams of reclaiming the Lost Fortune.<br/><br/>She flopped on the bench next to Clay, wallet disposed of and a stack of bills in her hip pocket, fingering her new pocket watch as the fight played out.  Not bad for ten minutes of work.<br/><br/>