ChessyPig/JulianCampbell

Julian Everett Campbell, aristocratic patriarch

King of Diamonds: An economic powerhouse and genius-level industralist, Julian effectively runs the British Civil Service, despite not having an actual government position; he simply invites the correct people to tea. And they aren't the only pie in which he has his fingers.
Deuce of Clubs: Crippled by some disease at a young age, Julian has always been bookish and not the active type, preferring to employ other people to perform physical tasks of any description.
Four of Spades: Julian has an impeccable sense of honour, and hence also employs other people to do his dirty work for him, because he knows that his vast intellect does not apply itself too well to the shadier side of life, and he keeps a fairly high profile and is physically incapable of most spy work.
Nine of Hearts: With the conssumate skill of a master diplomat, it is not only the way that his recommendations generally turn out to be correct that keeps people coming to him for advice.

Born in 1872, Julian Everett Campbell was already marked for greatness by his parentage; the second son of John George Edward Henry Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll, he spent his early years in Canada, but was shortly returned to England to pursue his education. Unfortunately, he caught some dreadful illness on the sea voyage, and although he made an almost complete recovery he would never be a sportsman. His native flair for ensuring things happened at the right time and in the right order was finely honed at his preparatory school and at Eton, where his physical condition denied him the usual routes to respect amongst his peers and his father's supposed homosexual exploits earned him some degree of taunting, but those who would pick on him discovered swiftly that things went wrong for them an awful lot more than usual. His natural likeablility, good manners and high social status earned him a reasonable circle of friends despite his physical shortcomings, and he made sure to cultivate those who he had decided were marked for great things, especially if it was through some talent of their own rather than simply their heritage.

Attending Oxford from 1890, he studied Law, although mostly he studied which people were likely to be found in high places in the future and what must be done to make their acquaintence and become an influence in their lives. He was rather an idealistic student, and believed whole-heartedly in the British Empire's mandate to civilise the world, bringing advances in technology and society and raising the quality of life. He occasionally mentioned a regret that he did not study Science, so that he could be part of the machine of technological progress, but mostly to those who favoured that subject; Law gave him the oppertunity to learn about the deep workings of the legislature and the judiciary, which would be invaluble for avoiding legal hassles and causing them for his enemies in later life.

After graduating, he took a variety of Civil Service posts around the world, making contacts and ensuring that everyone knew he was a good egg who could be counted on if they were in a spot of bother, thereby securing a world-wide support network for any endeavour he might think of - and he thought of quite a few, mostly subtle extensions of the Empire's hold on its territories and reductions in power of those who would exploit their charges too harshly. In 1910, he met an impressive young student called Sybil Campbell on one of his sojourns in Cambridge, in the company of some old friends of his, and knowing that the real action of the next few years would concern Western Europe rather than the colonies, he made an effort to get an academic position in Cambridge for a few years and spent them wooing the lady.

During the Great War, Julian's advice turned the tide of several decisive campaigns, although naturally his disabilities precluded him from attending the continent during this time. He gained a reputation as an expert military tactician, although most of his work consisted of putting the right people in touch with the right people and reading the right books. After the War, he announced he was retiring from public life in order to spend more time with his children (of which he now had two, although only one was really of speaking age) and managing his estates. Sybil's career went from strength to strength, and Julian did not in any way retire from the Great Game; on the contrary, he had left the more mundane responsibilities of running the world to others in order to concentrate on clandestine meetings with the movers and shakers he had collected in his travels.

Julian is a little upset with the phrase 'the Great Game', in general; he sees the whole matter of running the world as rather more serious than that, and continues to organise philanthropy and general improvement in the state of the world on a grand scale, although he is rather worried about the future of his beloved Empire and is sometimes blind to its abuses.

Ooh, another British aristocrat... I'd enjoy bouncing off this one, I think, although always having to work on the long finger might be a slight handicap. --Jacob