Character: Colonel (ret) Randolph Egerton-Chase, Lord Selby

Player: Shai

Ht.: ’ Wt. lbs.

Income: L Nationality: British

Strength 3	Intellect 4
Fisticuffs 2	Observation 4
Throwing 1 Close Combat 2 (edged)
Agility 2	Charisma 3
Stealth 1	Eloquence 4
Marksmanship 2(Pistol)	Linguistics 3 (French, Hundi, Gurkha) Bargaining 1 Theatrics 1
Endurance 3	Social Level 6
Wilderness Travel 2(Mapping)	Riding 6 (Horse)
Fieldcraft	Leadership 2
Swimming 1

Careers: Officer in Fashionable Infantry and Colonial Office.

2 skill points taken as 1 Point Fieldcraft and 1point Close Combat.

Biographical Notes:

Randolph William Egerton-Chase is the son of minor Northumberland aristocracy. At his grandfather's early death, his uncle John, the eldest son, inherited the title. Shortly thereafter, Randolph's father William quarreled with his brother, leading to their eventual estrangement not long before Randolph's graduation from Rugby School in 1840.

Randolph eagerly desired a military career, but due to the contretemps, his father couldn't afford to purchase a commission for him in a desirable regiment. In the end, Randolph was posted to India at the age of 17, in 1841, as a subaltern in the Honourable British East India Company’s Army of the Indus during the midst of the First Afghan War. Fortunately, he was assigned to General Sir Robert Sale's Bengal brigade, as a Queen’s officer rather than a Company man. The brigade was spared the horrors of the ignominious retreat from Kabul, and Egerton-Chase participated in the capture and defense of Jalalabad.

Shortly thereafter, Randolph was transferred to the 6th Local Battalion in Dehra Dun, Sirmoor, where he commanded Gurkha riflemen as an ensign and then lieutenant. He next saw major action during the First Sikh War, under Sir Harry Smith. After a forced march to relieve Ludhiana, the Gurkhas fought at Aliwal, where the men of the battalion briefly lost their colours, regaining them shortly thereafter in a fierce counterattack led by Havildar (Sergeant) Rambahadur Rai. They also fought at at Sobraon, where the British forces broke the Sikh 'Khalsa', for good. At the end of the war, Egerton-Chase had achieved the rank of captain.

In 1852, Randolph returned to England, where he met and married Anne Routledge, daughter of a Northumberland country squire. She returned to Bengal with him, where their first son, Terence, was born in 1855. Another son, William, followed in 1859. The marriage was happy, though Mrs. Egerton-Chase never truly grew accustomed to life in the Raj. Nevertheless, she was a loving and dutiful wife, raising the boys and keeping house while Randolph was away at his various postings and campaigns. Though they found the separations difficult, they maintained contact with frequent, fondly composed correspondence.

During the Indian Mutiny in 1857, his unit, now known as the Sirmoor Rifle Battalion, participated in the siege of Delhi. The battalion garrisoned the Hindu Rao compound for three months and eight days without relief, repulsing 26 separate attacks. Of the battalion's strength of 490 troops and 9 officers, they suffered casualties of 327 enlisted men and 8 officers, including Egerton-Chase, who received a bayonet thrust to his left leg, a wound which has troubled him ever since. His life was saved by the selfless bravery of the young Lance-Naik (Lance Corporal) Jitbahadur Rai (son of the havildar who led the charge at Aliwal), who threw himself between the attacking sepoy and his officer, taking a serious wound in his shoulder. Egerton-Chase later promoted Rai to the rank of naik (corporal), and made him his batman.

At the fall of Delhi, the battalion was given the honour of garrisoning Delhi's famous Red Fort. As a battle honor, the unit was granted a third regimental Colour (later replaced by the unique Truncheon, when in 1858 the battalion became The Sirmoor Rifle Regiment). Egerton-Chase was promoted major.

Randolph's beloved Anne died during an outbreak of cholera in 1872, leaving him heartbroken. Alone save for his faithful batman Jitbahadur Rai, as both his sons were at school in England, he threw himself into his work. He was promoted lieutenant colonel in command of the first battalion, 2nd Gurkha (Sirmoor Rifle) Regiment, which had undergone two other changes of designation, having spent three years in the 1860s as the 17th Bengal Native Infantry.

In 1876 the unit became the 2nd (Prince of Wales's Own) Gurkha Regiment (The Sirmoor Rifles). Two years later, they were sent to Malta during the Russo-Turkish War of 1878, but Egerton-Chase remained in Bengal, having been transferred to the general staff.

That same year, his uncle John, Lord Selby, and Randolph's father passed away within weeks of each other, leaving the very surprised Lt. Col Egerton-Chase as the sole heir to the Selby title and lands. He resigned his commission and returned to England, his "home", where he had spent less than a third of his life. Jitbahadur Rai, now a regimental havildar major at the age of forty, accompanied him, taking up his old duties as Egerton-Chase's manservant. The chilly Northumberland climate disagreed with the colonel, and he was uncomfortable with the life of a country aristocrat. He had no stomach for arbitrating tenant disputes or running a manor house, and the presence of the faithful RHM Rai was a constant reminder of his life in India. When trouble began brewing on the Northwest Frontier, leading to the Second Afghan War, Randolph leapt at the chance to return to service as Colonel of the 5th Regiment of Foot (Northumberland Fusiliers), a unit which had fought at Lucknow during the Mutiny, and in which several of his relatives had served.

He led his new regiment well, and they fought with distinction in the bloody Afghan campaigns, achieving battle honors. For a time at the beginning of the war, a doctor by the name of John Watson was attached to the 5th as assistant surgeon, though he was later transferred to the 66th Berkshires when the situation at Kandahar became dire. This young doctor was later to become famous as the biographer of the renowned consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.

In 1880 the war ended. Randolph, now fifty-six, having spent 39 years in the army, decided that it was time to leave the soldiering to younger men. He no longer wanted for money, having a substantial income in rents and other proceeds from Selby. He longed to remain in India, however, and used some of his connections with former military men to obtain a posting within the Indian Branch of the Colonial Office, intending to become an administrator in some pleasant Bengali town.

Some years later, however, his superiors decided that his services were urgently required in Her Majesty's Martian colonies, and he was transferred to Syrtis Major, there to travel to (location at GM's discretion) to become consul. Along the way, he decided to take a brief holiday to familiarize himself with the vastly different Martian landscape. What better method than a safari? With the ever-loyal RHM Rai at his side, Col. Egerton-Chase set off for the Red Planet…