Character Musings

[prissyprincesscyan]

First of all hello to Admin, whom I'm assuming is cssmythe3/Brooklyn Gamer Dad, and anyone else looking who might be joining.

I tend to brainstorm a fair bit of concept before I actually start filling out a sheet, even then I often get halfway think of a different idea and start over. So I started this thread for a bit of question asking, concept musing and to contain my ramblings until they are concrete enough to put into an actual character application.

Since I'm contrarian and we've been told there is no magic my mind went to something magic-esque that isn't actually magic.  What I am currently considering is some kind of techno cultist who believes ritual, alchemical and magical laws have an effect on how they operate, particularly in the matrix. While these rituals have no real effect and much of what happens is due to the character's innate skill or simply practice they firmly believe that the rituals do have an impact and without them they would be just like everyone else. So sort of like the WoD Sons of Ether or the 40k tech priest just without the whole organization of the tradition or Adeptus Mechanicus.

In terms of actual archetypes I'm considering something tech tech so either a decker, since I am assuming Technomancers are out with the rest of magic, or a rigger. The decker would probably be full on cultist, black robes, sacrifice and a grimoire of deck code and jargon who believe sacrificing a rat to their deck really does make it run just that bit faster.

The rigger would be along the lines of a Dr. Frankenstein type, while drones and vehicles are on the market their machines are better, they have the best parts taken from other machines stapled together in a horrific manner and with the same idea of sacrifice been given something closer to humanity than those factory built droids could ever hope to achieve.

I'll let that sit there while I think about it and if anyone has any ideas, input or questions feel free to throw them at me.

One last thing, on the recruitment post Brooklyn Gamer Dad said that if you want to use the pregenned characters you should include how they got to New York. Shouldn't that be London since that is where we are starting or did I miss something?

[Admin]

> First of all hello to Admin, whom I'm assuming is cssmythe3/Brooklyn Gamer Dad, and anyone else looking who might be joining.

I have been revealed! And howdy.

> What I am currently considering is some kind of techno cultist who believes ritual, alchemical and magical laws have an effect on how they operate, particularly in the matrix.

This works nicely.

> I am assuming Technomancers are out with the rest of magic.

If you want to insert a 'next stage of human evolution' angle, I'll allow a technomancer in the group, with the usual stipulation that they are very rare, and need to maintain their secret from Those Who Would Dissect Them. With further extrapolation, I'd allow a telepath / telekentic / pyrokinetc, maybe even astral projection, but conjuring is still a no-no.

> you should include how they got to New York.

Typo! off to fix.

[Deals with dragons]

Very fun character concept! I look forward to seeing it in action!

[prissyprincesscyan]

As typical of me I probably went overboard in throwing stuff together but for your consideration I have Hija, Atzlan Dronomancer and prophet of La Comunidad de Dawn.

Due to the very lax laws on blood rituals in the ever increasing ‘Aztec inspired’ culture and the rise of genetic manipulation it was only a matter of time before a destructive cult promising the next step for humanity by combining the two cropped up in Atzlan. La Comunidad de Dawn, through its charismatic leadership, managed to secure the interests of several prominent geneticists by offering work without the restrictions and interference that would be placed on them by corporations. For their human stock they simply offered what they wanted, a better life, a new start and the future of mankind. With their community formed the cult started work engineering the next step for humanity and were very successful, even aiding the much larger corporations in the later Gamma, Delta and Epsilon strains and became an example of how such varying types of humanity could form together, each with a role to play in the community. While this was all well and good, for the most part, La Comunidad de Dawn focus was on Psions, powers beyond that of normal humans the powers of gods. While the mix of faith and genetics proved to have little influence over the birth of a psionic person the cult worked undeterred.

Noe Rojas Venegas was born into the cult in 2062 and beyond a few minor alterations was a baseline Beta human. Cared for in the communal nursery Noe was a quiet child who preferred to be alone playing on the newly implanted wireless matrix. While obedient this was mostly due to the fact if she did what was asked of her quickly and to a high standard people wouldn’t pester her further. Beyond these she was mostly unknown, irrelevant to the cults ambitions.
This was until Noe started hearing voices and seeing fragments of the Matrix during the semi-regular brown outs. Deemed at first as hallucinations brought on by Matrix addiction Noe’s abilities were doubted until she proved that she could, “Speak to machines and the Matrix, not people on the Matrix but the Matrix itself and they all spoke back.”
This quickly elevated Noe from nobody to a prophet in the eyes of the cult, she was pampered and could want for naught just as the other few psions were so that she could focus on training her abilities and allow the geneticists to discover what made her tick. While the pampering was nice Noe still held an aversion to people and took a fair greater liking to the machines, they never doubted her after all, so she remained a recluse, humble as it were, only making appearances when she was asked to by the leadership.

Despite this silence word managed to slip out about the cult’s new discovering to one Jackson Ellias. A friendly if serious man who spoke Spanish far better than Noe could speak English. He interviewed a number of members, the leadership and eventually their prophets. The two other prophets demonstrated their abilities adequately enough and passed Jackson's testing but Noe did not show any signs what was typical of Psions. Further what abilities she did demonstrate could be waved away with use of deckers or simple acting. Despite this the skeptic was not entirely unconvinced that the child was not psionic in some way.

While Jackson’s expose did not disprove that the prophets were psionically inclined his show did became a death knell for the cult. He proof of the use of blood ritual and sacrifice scared many of the non-Atzlan backers away, taking their funding with them. Further he managed to prove that the rituals were pointless and played no effect in produced psionic people, out of the thousands dwelling in the community only three were psionic and of those only two were actually born during the cults practices and one of those had a doubtful claim on psionics at best, which drove even more members away. Last of all a number of government and corporate officials took a keen interest in the cult. Child protection, revenue, permit and paperwork officials that could be waved away before were now dogged and indomitable, in particular in pursuing Noe. With the writing on the wall for the cult the leadership used a man known as, Blackwind, to smuggle the three prophets to different countries. The twelve year old found herself in Spain and the last she heard of la Comunidad de Dawn was its collapse after a violent raid on the compound by corporate forces as the leadership and remaining fanatics defended themselves.

Left alone with a few choice words of advice from Blackwind Noe quickly learned that people here wouldn’t take care of her base necessities simply by virtue of who she was, what she was. Instead she would need to work, to earn nuyen in order to survive. She liked this, it allowed her to hone her talents, get paid and have only a minimal contact with other people. Working in the shadows for the next year Noe, operating under the name Hija, found herself travelling across Europe. Staying one step ahead of those pursuing her thanks to her friends and following wherever the nuyen led.

[Admin]

Awesome. Simply awesome.

[Quhzk]

Love the character so far, excited to see where it goes - I was writing one of my narrations and wanted to describe one of the drones but to be honest I'm not too sure of what they look like.. don't suppose you can give a description of your robo-friends? I've always loved the flavour of the Adeptus Mechanicus so mixing that with shadowrun sounds pretty rad

[prissyprincesscyan]

I hadn't put too much thought into the drones' appearances until just now. I'd say Alberto came first and is based on the standard FlySpy chassis with extensive work to improve him that, as a result, bulks him out to look more like an eucharitid wasp. Benita would have been a later project after Hija got better at miniaturizing and streamlining things down and appears a sleeker damselfly. In my look for pictures I stumbled on Pol Cosmo's street art. Given each of her drones is unique I would imagine Hija taking the time to carve and paint small patterns and designs onto each one to make them unique. In fact I think she would use AR paint so they can change colour but linked it to some kind of emotion programming so it changes with their mood like a chameleon. Less controllable but more natural that way.

[Deals with dragons]

So no adorable little servo-skulls?

[prissyprincesscyan]

I haven't been able to kill any pixies for their tiny skulls yet.

[Deals with dragons]

Dang, I mean maybe start with some Pygmy monkeys or something then Work your way up...

[Deals with dragons]

I just realized, the date you stated as her birth would make Hija eight years old as of the current timeline. I Don't know how if you meant for her to be that young.

[prissyprincesscyan]

Twelve / thirteen was what I was aiming at. I'm going along the date given in the initial Recruitment post which read:

Mar 19, 2018 17:15:37 GMT Admin said:

The game will start in London, 2075. Characters from far-away places like New York, China, Australia and Africa are encouraged (not required).

I'll let the GM weigh on the exact date and adjust accordingly.

[Deals with dragons]

Ah, the timeline stated 2070 as the starting year I think, but that does sound more reasonable.