Bartholomew Burgess

Bartholomew Burgess (birth name Dugald Greenstreet) is a well known entertainer and salesman. He is best known for Burgess's Bric-A-Brac, the famous oddity museum in the Waterport Entertainment District, and Bugress, Bray, and Beeler, a travelling circus he founded with partners Oswald Bray and Hiram Beeler.

Early Life
Burgess was born in the heart of the Waterport District to a mother who was a burlesque dancer and an unknown father. Burgess learned to love the stage, saying in his memoir, "There was nothing I wouldn't do to get in front of those footlights. Even as a toddler, I would run onstage during my mother's act juggling her compacts." As a child, Burgess found himself bored with school, though he excelled at magic, specifically bardic spells. His prowess at enchantment combined with his charisma is said to be so strong that after a conversation with him, "one is unsure whether a spell has been cast or not, but they are much happier for it." At age 16, Burgess left his childhood home and struck out on his own, leaving Merrowlight for nearby Crosect Valley. It was there he first encountered the great love of his life: advertising. "I had seen many flashy and charismatic people in my life, but when I first saw Viviana Arias commanding a crowd, it was like nothing I had ever encountered. She was selling air, bottles of air, to a public who were begging her for it. She wasn't just selling nothing for something, she was making you believe you'd die without it. I practically begged her to take me under her wing." Burgess traveled with Arias for many years after that, in a partnership that exists to this day.

Burgess, Bray, and Beeler
After years of travelling in a small show, Burgess had an idea for something more. "Sure, I could keep selling people nothing and profiting, but those customers were almost never repeat customers. Sometimes we'd be run out of town by local authorities for scamming people out of their money, a ludicrous claim I dispute to this day. I realized then that what I needed wasn't customers, what I needed were fans." Burgess met Oswald Bray on a journey to the east. Bray was a businessman and investor, but he had always held a deep love for the circus. "I made my money in real estate, but my heart belonged in that big top tent." Bray was a charming man with an inclination to overeat and a love of magic, especially for entertainment purposes as Burgess was wont to engage in. The men became fast friends after Burgess rented one of Bray's properties for a showcase of exotic magics from the Great Old Ones. When Burgess needed money to get his idea for a travelling show off the ground, Bray gladly gave him the cash: "Even if I didn't get to put my name on it, it would have been worth it. But I insisted he put my name on it."

Hiram Beeler, in contrast to his much more boisterous business partners, was a dour and severe man. He had been running his own show, Beeler's Mysteries, for years before he met Burgess. "I found him a rather silly man, altogether too loud and obnoxious. But he knew how to draw a crowd." The two men had crossed paths before, Beeler even allowing Burgess stage time during Beeler's Mysteries to sell his then-iconic Shinetoil. Beeler wasn't very charismatic, but he was organized, precise, and he knew every circus performer and freak act across the country. Burgess knew he had to join up with him, and Beeler agreed because "I knew it would be a paycheck the likes of which I'd never encountered." Since forming, Burgess, Bray, and Beeler has become the most well known circus act in the country. But Burgess still wasn't satisfied.

Burgess's Bric-A-Brac and Axiom Industries
After many years of touring, Burgess had wanted to settle, in the same place he was born: the Waterport Entertainment District. There was just one problem: how does a touring circus settle down? Sure, the circus had fans, but no fans that would attend a show every single day. Most didn't have the financial resources. "Then it hit me," Burgess said in his autobiography, "I needed something cheaper than a circus, something that didn't involve paying out the nose for live performers. A museum." Burgess decided to settle and open an oddity museum, claimed by him to be the first of its kind, though scholars agree that several smaller museums and tourist traps across the country might better hold that title. Burgess partnered with the then recently formed Axiom Industries for the founding of his museum. The museum's first attraction came from this partnership: it was the first building in the country lit entirely by electric lights. Many other buildings hadn't bothered to be converted to the relatively recent technology, so the building that shown in the middle of the night was a huge draw for crowds, regardless of what else was inside. This also started the friendship between Burgess and Sorrel Fuse, another which persists.

Wartime and Postwar
Burgess attempted to be an apolitical figure, so when the war started, Burgess made no comment on it, only ordering his still-travelling circus to avoid the combat zones and any town within several miles of them. When asked about the war, he would dodge all questions, often through the use of enchantment magic, weaving the course of the interview away from any controversial topic. He maintained this stance until the Battle of Gup Row, after which his only stance was for ending the war. "That tragedy was so great that I knew then that the war had to end. Luckily for me, that's when it did." Burgess's various attractions blossomed postwar. After the horrors, all the country wanted to do was relax, which was his specialty. Burgess currently enjoys his prosperity from his apartment about Burgess's Bric-A-Brac, where he plans to stay for the rest of his life.