The Drake Family

Villains in a Victorian/Edwardian-themed fantasy story (set on a world similar but not quite like Earth) I'm working on. From left:

Harriet (The Queen of Hearts)- the youngest child at 35, she hosts a radio program popular among the city's bourgeoisie, informing them what new knick-knacks or baubles they must buy if they want to be fashionable and respectable. Said baubles are, by sheer coincidence of course, often products her father's company has a financial interest in. An altogether unpleasant person, at least for those who don't share her vindictive streak and obsessive materialism. Picture Dolores Umbridge crossed with a barbie doll, hopped up on 19th-century moralism and with just a dash of madness thrown in.

Spaulding (The King of Clubs) - The consummate manly man of his era, a stringent believer in law and order both for the public and for his personal affectations, sees it as his mission to wipe out the city's dangerous elements, which essentially consist of anyone with different politics, religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, or personal hobbies and interests different than his own. His fairly spartan lifestyle (as spartan as the son of a multi-millionaire can be, anyway) has left him in pretty good shape at age 41. That combined with his bloodlust leads him to take cases "into his own hands" more often than may strictly be required. Pictured here in a military uniform, although he may be re-imagined as a chief of police or something similar.

Lawrence (The King of Diamonds)- The family patriarch, age 68, a man of unspeakable wealth (equivalent to the Rockefellers of Vanderbilts of that era in our world) whose multi-armed corporation has a hand in everything from gold, silver, and diamonds to oil and coal to the manufacture of flatware and silverware. Although the social conventions of his era demand that men his age maintain an austere and dignified appearance, Lawrence maintains his secret love of gaudy and luxurious clothing, jewelry, silks, perfumes, and the likes, spending a not-insignificant portion of his wealth on these lovelies, a pursuit he keeps zealously private.

Claudia (The Queen of Spades)- Likely the most intelligent member of the family, Claudia runs a psychological research facility/insane asylum/re-education camp for people, particularly middle-class people and even more particularly middle-class women, who can't or won't abide by the social and moral conventions of the era. They're often guilty of such crimes as dressing immodestly, reading indecent literature, and spending too much time outdoors, and such people, going by the scientific thinking of the time, must suffer from some sort of brain disease, and are kept out of public so they don't infect anyone else. Of course, Claudia's methods of setting them right are not exactly humane and, shall we say, strictly results-oriented.


I based their designs and motifs partly on, if it wasn't clear, the four suits of cards and to a degree what those suits represent in tarot and the like. The cards in the background were supplied by ~mmp-stock