unicorn Amber Rose [Ready]

[Windwright]

Roleplay Type: WoE
Name: Amber Rose, usually
Sex: Female
Age: Mare
Species: Unicorn
Eye colour: Amber with striations of pink
Coat: dusty rose pink
Mane/Tail: Verdant green, usually kept in a long loose braid pinned over her right shoulder. Her tail is kept in long a mass of loose curls
Physique: Surprisingly toned for having such a sedentary job. Not bulky, but it's clear she's no stranger to healthy exercise and lots of it.
Residence: Stalliongrad, but she frequently travels.
Occupation: Locksmith
Cutie Mark: Yellow rose in bloom with its stem in the shape of a key's teeth.
Unique Traits:  Her unique talent is that she's focused on her telekinesis to a fine degree, and is able to use that to manipulate the tumblers in a traditional or combination lock and receive tactile feedback from the things she 'touches' with it. If asked, she explains this as coming through her horn, but not from it. 

History:

From a young age, Amber had a knack for using telekinesis in ways other unicorns  her age didn't. Others lifted and held and moved, with little more refined than moving a pencil or needle and thread. Amber solved puzzles, tied bows, untied knots, and bent and twisted wire. Her family thought she was going to go into jeweling at first, once they abandoned their dream of teaching her to be a florist, and were confused when she showed little interest in the trade.

Instead she would spend hours breaking apart and reassembling anything she could get her hooves on, and eventually she took an interest in lock-picking. Her parents were slightly concerned, as this set of skills sometimes attract the wrong kind of attention, but were relieved when she expanded that interest to key making and locksmithing as well. She completed an apprenticeship in the art in record time, and actually impressed her master with the precision with which she ground out duplicate keys, and soon she was setting up her own shop in the nearby market district.

She's been moderately successful, after all everypony needs locks for one thing or another, and ponies misplace keys all the time. There has been a disturbing trend lately where somepony has been breaking into safes and homes and stealing valuables. Amber's business and clients were hit just like other ponies, of course, but her locks were notoriously tricky to pick due to their complexity, and every time she heard one of her locks had been bypassed, she always replaced the lock in question for free, usually with a newer model that was even tougher, unless doing so was impossible.

Character Personality: Amber is a mare unto herself. She has a force of personality that makes her somewhat hard to ignore. A quiet strength that comes from pride in a job well done, a body well maintained, and a reputation well earned. She's spent years focusing her art and bending it to her craft, and there are few thieves who can keep up with her mind. She's not boastful, but the way she carries herself and looks at those around her suggests that she knows exactly what her own value is. She does not need to put others down to feel better about herself, because she feels great about herself. She doesn't need to boast or brag because she's not measuring her own worth against those around her but instead has some other metric she's using.

She's quick with a kind word and unscrupulously fair in her business dealings, believing that other ponies will treat her fairly and kindly in return so long as they are shown that courtesy. She holds her work to the highest possible standard and lets it speak for itself. Any jeweler, policepony, guard, or banker can attest to the quality of her best work, and she holds her head high in those circles.

Which is not to say that she doesn't enjoy cutting loose and having some fun every now and again, she's known to patron local bars, dives, and theatres wherever she's visiting, sampling the best social spaces the city has to offer whenever she has the time and bits, and she's not afraid to share the wealth when her business is doing well. She considers it her duty, in fact.
Character Summary:

An upright and forthright locksmith with nothing to hide and no reason to be ashamed of either her humble beginnings or her recent successes, Amber is and will always be a source of pride for her Stalliongrad neighborhood. Always ready to pay it forward and spend time and bits where they're needed most, Amber is exactly what she seems to be.

Spoiler

Until she isn't.

Name: Red Herring
Sex: Unknown, presumed male
Age: Unknown adult, active for several years.
Species: Unknown, but likely unicorn or Earth pony.
Eye colour: Unknown, wears an opaque mask
Coat: Unknown, wears a red body-suit
Mane/Tail: See Coat
Physique: Small, likely slender. Presumed to use air ducts and narrow windows to avoid locked doors in some cases.
Residence: Unknown, somewhere within Stalliongrad as most robberies are in this area.
Occupation: Thief, burglar, and presumed spy. The entire underbelly of Stalliongrad knows how to contact him, as he makes a point of leaving a calling card whenever he burgles a known criminal's home.
Cutie Mark: Unknown, but his calling card is a stylized red fish, and his suit bears the same design in black where the cutie mark would be.
Unique Traits:

Able to break into nearly any non-magical safe, lockbox, vault, prison, diary, or reserve. Able to infiltrate buildings and infrastructure with seeming impunity. Seems to favour large establishments over small businesses, but has been known to strike jewelers no matter the size, and is not above taking jobs to acquire unique assets from less well off individuals. He is well known for accepting jobs targeting criminals, though it's not always known who his clients are until the dust settles.

His calling card is a standing placeholder of the same design and card stock used in restaurants, weddings, and formal dinners. The cards are blank white except for a single blood-red fish drawn in two curved strokes. Theory is it's left as part trophy and part proof to clients that the job in question was done by Red Herring. Both the police and REA have withheld the exact shade and composition of the red ink, in hope of being able to tie it to the guilty suspect once he's apprehended.

History:

At first the Red Herring burglaries were just an oddity. Homes and safes would be broken into, but nothing was taken. We were only able to find out the first year or so of crimes were Red's because he left a typed note at one of his later heists in place of the painting. It included dates and addresses for the first four burglaries, which we already suspected were linked, and gradually over the next year it added the rest.

He built a reputation, iron-clad, in the Stalliongrad underworld. if you needed something lifted, he'd get it for you. Information, art, gemstones, bits, jewelry, didn't matter, he'd get it, and get it from whatever pony you told him to. Bragged about his scores, leaving calling cards in plain sight if he took something material. Took us a couple years to figure out he was a spy too. No pony's ever heard him talk, just leaves letters and packages at his drop points. Same way you hire him. Drop some bits and a note in the right mail bin or flowerpot or down the right sewer, tell him what you want stole and if your bits are gone you'll find the package a couple days or weeks later wherever you told him to put it.

We get some stuff back like that. Find the drop point before the client and just sit on it. Never seems to give a flying feather about the poor dupes once he gets the good out though. We figure he's stealing to prove he can, not because he needs the bits, but he's good at what he does. We tried planting a fake job once or twice and staking it. He shows up, takes a look around, and he don't like what he sees, he's gone. Caught him once, but before we could get the dumb mask off his face, he just smirks at us and sprints off, professional cuffs sitting on the ground open like they were foal's toys.

Character Personality:

Cocky, real show off. Quiet as a mouse, but he has this grin that just reads like he thinks he's better than you, your badge, your precinct, and your mama's cannoli. Sometimes I almost agree with him. He's good at what he does.

Character Summary:

A master thief, in it for the thrill of the caper and the satisfaction of a job well done. Red Herring is an unrepentant hoodlum, gleefully stealing anything that isn't nailed down, then coming back for the nails if it'll wound your pride enough. There's no lock short of magic he can't get through, and he's bypassed more than one magical lock by simply removing the lock or the door.

He'll steal anything from anyone if he's given half an excuse. From a two bit piece from a two bit con to a centuries old tapestry from Prince Blueblood's estate. He doesn't care if he can fence it, that's the client's job. He doesn't care if it's a trap, he's more than capable of waltzing out of any holding cell he's placed in like the bars aren't there. He doesn't care if his victims are powerful mafioso or business owners barely making ends meet. If there's a challenge to be had in the taking, it's gone.

In short, Red Herring is not a stallion. Red Herring is a force of nature.

 

[Blueblood]

Heh, I like the idea of the double app for hidden information.  I'll pass it along for second review!

[Bellosh]

Double-lives are a bad habit to get into.