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Damaged Goods, Character Backgrounds

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Sun, 2013-09-08 03:52

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

Damaged Goods, Character Backgrounds

Hi all, thought ya might get a kick reading the character backgrounds of the players in my group, most of the players gave me a rough idea of what they wanted, then I elaborated and these are the emails I had sent each of my players. NOTE: IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN THE EP GAME ON TUESDAYS AT NEMOS, DO NOT READ THIS! ok so first up, is the Ultimate Genefixer. One thing to be aware of... the Ultimate has most of the memories of Manu Baychgaratyata (or whatever) the founder of the Ultimates faction, he does not know if he is Manu or just some how got his memories... a nightmare- bare bleeding feet stomping fiercely on a broken crumbled mirror. Darkness, your in pain, silence, confusion, fear, a bright light, beauty, joy, an angel with golden hair softly touches your hand, she smiles, euphoria. Your filthy and high on meds, your wounded, you have dirt in your mouth, “The fighting is getting more serious sir, if that was even possible.” a young officer says. “Nanite storm hit the outer observers twenty minutes ago, its on a direct course, TITAN assets are advancing with it. Overall casualtys are right around 80%.” “We finally got a navsat back, Jasons are only giving fifteen before the class five walkers are within direct fire range, meaning our nukes and rocks are already inbound… Then its over one way or the other Sir… last train’s in the station and we gotta get aboard.” From outside the bunket a panicked solder yells “Fractals inbound! Take…” the world goes bright.. Darkness, barely heard voices, consciousness drifting.., older female voice: (with a slight Japanese accent) “…off the monitors, much less the whole section… really though .. I know you’re the overqualified expert but I still think your over reacting. If it was gonna happen it would have already happened.” male voice: “ignorant cow! You don’t have the slightest clue what your talking about, keep your ill informed opinions on subjects you have no expirence in to yourself. How is HE?” older female voice: (murmurs) in and out might never recover, but without… (murmurs) Just no way to tell at this point. male voice seems questioning older female voice: “possibly but I doubt it and even if he did currently his long term memory, and most cognitive functions are shot all to hell… he wont be remembering any of this…” Male voice: “ (murmurs).. ity as a whole?” older female voice: ” …(murmurs) damaged, target one, the tangent, 40 percent, target two, the primary, over 90 percent, near total wipe of the index… (murmers) male voice: “.. did you do then?” older female voice: (murmurs) “leftovers… crude but I think it worked… (lots of murmurs)” older female voice: “…over three hundred his is the only…(many murmurs)” male voice: “…their paying the agreed upon prices but…(murmurs)… special… (murmurs)… bidder (murmurs)” older female voice: “…fucking dangerous! You gotta be completely out of your tiny mind!. If you want to get yourself killed that’s fine but let me commit my own seppuku….” male voice: “You got any fucking better ideas?!” a flashback- Manu making a backup in a armored storage container, your thinking you don’t trust this machine, the operator, or anything else about this situation, you briefly think if your war counsel wanted to get rid of you over the recent excessive troop losses, and the decision not to save ourselves first, this would be the perfect situation, your god damned sure Abrix and Taos have been plotting something recently and your going to need to remedy that situation. Then you worry about looking hesitant, or showing fear and steel your nerves as the operator closes the halo and attaches the stack interface. a flashback Manu as an 11 year old child, the warlord’s men take the village, your father is the village elder holding you tightly, the warlord grabs you says he and all his men will leave the village right now if the elder gives them you, your father with tears in his eyes refuses, the warlord laughs, over the following days though you scream and fight, all the women and girls are beaten and raped the men are tortured eventually everyone in the village, everyone you’ve ever known… is needlessly murdered as you watch. The warlord says “now we are your family” and puts you in the back of a jeep. A nightmare- you look into a smoky mirror, you see yourself, your reflection desperately tries to tell you something but no sound comes out, you point at your ear and hunch your shoulders, your reflection becomes angry, starts yelling and pointing at you, you motion as if you don’t understand, he punches the mirror, in super slow motion it begins to crack… Waking up, a soft light, the golden haired angel is there, she is the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, “Rise n shine solder boy, your not gonna make me blow revelry are ya? I don’t even know anybody named Revelry…” she gives a seductive smile, and a goofy child like giggle. Its intoxicating, yet at the same time some part of you finds this woman’s low born vulgarity in difference to your status greatly offensive, you consider some pleasurable (and quite sadistic) ways of correcting her behavior. Then you think… wait, if im in a medical bay, where is my personal physician, where are the Autarchs? Then realize this morph is not your own, something is very VERY wrong here, your sure the counsel turned against you and this is some form of twisted vengeance. The girl begins checking your eyes (your vision does seem blurry) “gotta ask ya a few questions hon, first… whats your name?” you think quickly, if they don’t know who you are you might be safe, you blurt out “Atilla khan” she looks a little confused, and says “you sure? Your stack was damaged and we couldent get a proper ID fix, but from the number sequence we could recover, the location we picked you up in, and the missing in action roles, we figure your either Abrix Mars, Jake Calbot, Pete Witman, or John Webb. You remember, your stack was never listed in the directories for exactly a situation like this, Mars was one of your Autarch’s, too high profile, and probably a trick question. The others you don’t recognize, but Webb sounds a little familiar.. “Webb” you say, “but I figure if I’m to live a second life and im leaving my old life behind, I should have a new name, a much grander name, and henceforth I’d prefer to be recognized as Atillakhan.” She smiles and again it feels like the sun has just returned after a long winter, and with mock frustration says “gawd, why are all the cute ones always so demanding!” she titters a bit and your both disgusted and deeply attracted. Over the next few days much is revealed. Your on a former frigate class orbital striker and assault drop ship that’s been converted to civilian use named “The Little Napoleon” the first person who introduces herself after Jessie the trauma nurse (the slutty angel with maxim model hotness) is Dr. Agatha Von Stoud, she’s a middle aged therapist and psychosurgeon, she asks some rudimentary questions, of course you give no answers and you’ve got endless questions of your own. Realizing your hesitation, she openly explains that your on a ship who’s cover is as a courer, transport, and import/export business but everyone on board is actually firewall agent, she says their second layer of cover is that they are gate crashers, mercenaries, and counter espionage security consultants. Not too long ago they undertook a gate crashing mission funded by the Ultimates, they recovered hundreds of stacks of long dead ultimates who fell near the south African elevator, you were one of them, but sadly your stack was terribly damaged, they had to use some radical and experimental techniques to fill in the missing data and bring you back. Stroud goes on to explain that you will be suffering from acute long term memory loss, that often your memories may seem like someone elses, or that you may feel as if there are more than one person inside your head. It’s a disorder similar to DID, in addition your going to be dealing with Vetrans post traumatic stess disorder, survivoirs guilt, panic attacks, and other ailments that have been present in most disabled vetrans of brutal wars since time likely began, actually… the memory loss may be a blessing in disguise, but as the neural pathways reform many of your memories will also return. It will take hard work and determination to overcome but she’ll be there to help you through it. The next person you speak with is the ship’s captian John Beauregard (I already told you about him) he answeres most of your questions, he says the damage to your stack was too significant, and the ulimates sent this message… “Lieutenant Webb, or Lieutenant Atillakhan, as I’ve been notified you wish to be adressed, I’m Captain Kirov, and I’m deeply honored to make your aquaintence. (Kirov speaks with a slight Russian accent) Currently I’m proud to say I have achieved the status of chief of public relations and lead recruitment officer of the Lunar district. I’m truly sorry this conversation could not be had in person. We, the entire transhuman race, all owe you a great deal of gratitude and respect for your sacrifice and continued struggle.” “ I’ve spoken with your therapist, and as your no doubt aware much has changed in your absence. I have also spoken to my superiors, and at this time the Ultimates feel you’ll need to make a significant recovery before you could realistically re-apply for indoctrination. To that end we have provided a top of the line Remade biomorph complete with the added modifications your therapist suggested. Were also extending you a 10,000 credit stipend as back pay, and enrolling you to begin receiving a 1,500 cerdit per month honorarium which will continue for the next five years or until your new application is accepted. I have also sent you the application data you will need to begin the process of once again joining our esteemed ranks.” “Currently your status is that of a highly decorated Ultimates Officer with an unusually long service record who has chosen to go on an extended leave of duty (at the mention of “leave of duty” Manu is raging inside you). You will also have access to limited aid and services from any Ultamates facility. I have included ALL of my personal contact data with this transmission, should you feel a need for anything, feel free to contact me at your leisure and should any Ultimate fail to pay you the respect you deserve, one call to me will be the last call you need to make.” I understand you will be in the Luna district for a short time before your current employer must leave the sector. If you feel up to it and have the time I would like to extend to you a personal invitation to join me at my home for dinner, and would greatly appreciate a chance to meet a true hero of the movement. Speaking of which I should let you know posthumously you were awarded the golden helix for actions taken above and beyond the call of duty as well as (lists like 10 medals) for your other actions taken during the Fall campaign. I hope to hear from you soon, Leutennant we--Atillakhan and know that though your official rank and status may have changed, I doubt theres any Ultimate who would fail to recognize your tireless contributions to our cause. Thank you. So what ya think? Oh, the recommended mods on your biomorph are level 1 emotional dampeners, and your gonna find they come in handy… why? Well regardless of if you were or wernt Manu, who you are now has changed and you’ve got an insecure, paranoid, and grandiose totalitarian dictator in your head making demands and casting aspersions. At times this will be a strength, pushing you on, noticing minute details you’ve missed, or suggesting superior tactics to utilize, (you’ll get bonuses for this) other times it’s a weakness cutting away at your self esteem and seeking to take control. Im sort of using Dexter and his relationship with his ghost dad as a refrence as well as a lot of other sources (criton & scorpion in the last season of farscape, green goblin, etc.)

—

"what do I want? The usual — hundreds of grandchildren, complete dominion over the known worlds, and the pleasure of hearing that all my enemies have died in highly improbable accidents that cannot be connected to me."

Sun, 2013-09-08 03:55

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

next up, the async lost gen assassin...

For the Async lost gen with DID… she told me the background she wanted, so didn’t have a hard copy (pretty standard hunter bg) this is what I suggested to her… I’d like you to include a few things in your background (if your not too opposed) Danny- Danny was the first lost gen you met on the streets. On your own your powers made it more easy to occasionally score some big graft, but once you met Danny it was a non stop party. Danny had mental amplifying abilities, he was hell on wheels when it came to hacking and thinking up new cons, but that was before Richard Namwen and his weird ass cult showed up. You and Danny were having an absolutely torrid teen romance, you often referred to each other as big brother and little sister, you grew incredibly, unnaturally close to each other in a very short time. You could each sense what the other was thinking, and if you were on the same ship together you could each sense the direction of the others physical location. Danny’s insanity was that he was an insomniac and deathly afraid of uplifts. He had terrible nightmares about chimera like uplifts hunting him like prey, he would often wake up screaming and when it was bad… drug himself to oblivion. Danny started spending more and more time drugged up on hype and on the mesh saying there are no uplifts, and no lost gen discrimination in the digital world. Soon anytime he wasn’t crashed out from drugs and insomnia he was meshing. Though there was still lots of loose funds, very quickly the parties ended. Then Namwen became the center of Danny’s thoughts. He was a mesh personality, a brinker and near exhuman who exclaimed the fall was simply the birthing pains of a new godlike race of transhumans, he said the asyncs and lost gen were touched by the TITANs and thus blessed by the new very real and very terrifying gods. What seemed like insane acts to most transhumans was really the god’s attempts to communicate with us. Namwen called out to all to join his campaign to start a new utopia on an exo planet . That everyone was invited to join his family where all sins are forgiven and you would always find a place of acceptance and respect at his table. Danny ate it up. Apparently Namwen was impressed by Danny as well, because he and his whole damn psycho cult showed up one day as they made their tour of the solar system picking up every async who would hear his message. Danny begged you to go to the meet and greet, you refused but snuck in anyway. The guy was amazing, his followers wernt just poor and insane asyncs, super wealthy hyperelites had joined up and turned their generational family fortunes over to him, if he was insincere he was the greatest con man in the universe, if he and his followers really were as blindly fanatical and dedicated as they seemed to be to this mad vision, that would also make him he most dangerous man in the universe. Either way you wanted no part of it and when Namwen left, Danny left with him.

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Sun, 2013-09-08 03:58

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

k now we got the Furry Fury

(side note... I hate Furries... but its an open game night and a guy who's clearly in love with em was dieing to get into the game... I witheld my hatred of all things animorphic and perverted and decided what the hell... giving the players what they want most of the time is a good way to keep em happy and coming back next week...) So the cat girl… Max Koviasi was absolutely the most evil untrustworthy motherfucker you had ever met, he once described his specialty as “The three B’s of belter credit adjustment, Befriend, Betray, Behead” and rumors were all over the place that besides being an implanted intelligence officer with Direct Action in charge of managing loosely veiled consortium bribes, he was also an ex Stellar Intelligence Envoy... leftover UN anti insurgency infomorph spooks who only got deployed when you absolutely positively had to smash an uprising in the shortest timeframe possible no matter how many innocents had to be tortured or ashed. Some of the furs said he was an async brain twister to which he would laugh and say he just had a knack at figuring out the best ways to motivate people… kinda like that old dutch dude from the “Needful Things” remake xp. You swore many times you’d never take a job from a psychotic nutjob like that, but well… you were desperate and the waster’s charm was almost hypnotic. You couldn’t help but to love the humorous bastard and once the jobs started the creds were flowing along with the booze, and when he finally showed you the modified Fury morph, there was no way you could say no to one last job… that was when you made the biggest mistake of your life… Past.. The “Methuselah Triumphant” was one of the most expensive post fall colony ships ever constructed. Your people had spent years looking for a properly sized asteroid to hab out but nothing was acceptable to the retirement aged fall surviving leaders of the colony, and rather than building or making needed decisions they engaged in endless argument. Their dreams of a new utopia ruled by the wisdom of the elderly died when colony’s experimental political system failed completely (mostly because it was based on old people lounging while the young starved), when the riots and patricides were over, you limped the “Methuselah Defeated” back to the main belt, completely out of fuel and nanofab feedstock, people were already talking about eating some of the surviving senior morphs, but maybe you were in luck, a new scum flotilla had just arrived… There's No Going Back (scum Flotilla)This ﬂotilla is home to a group of scum called the anachronauts, who attempt to recreate a variety of historical settings or, more accurately, alternative interpretations of these past visions. Each ship is dedicated to a speciﬁc theme. For example, the Gear Knight recreates Arthurian medieval culture, but with synthmorphs. The Ronin explores the days of the Japanese shogunate, but with cyberpunk-noir cybernetics. The Sassy Wench is predictably pirate themed, but with only women. Their LaFrance rig, The Keep on the Borderlands, is designed as a fantasy RPG dungeon, with the residents taking on roles as speciﬁc monster tribes. The anachronauts take their character personas very seriously, and expect visitors to play their roles appropriately. Though the construction hab and mining systems on the top of the line colony ship were worth potentially millions of credits, everyone was terrified that you wouldent be accepted in, or that the anarchs would treat you worse than the escaped slaves you felt like. But the flotilla was amazing. A new XP was all the rage with the youngers on the hab just prior to the uprising, Furry Florence was sword dueling animorphs, and steam punk gadgetry in Davinci’s renascence Florence. If you were going to join this flotilla you needed a theme, you all decided to rename the colony ship the “Furrious Florence” and started making the outward customizations that would convert all the morphs on the ship to furry themed. Differing political and philosophical factions on the ship chose differing animorph races, anyone adamantly opposed to the decision was forced into the Vatican dogs, the adamant supporters (such as yourself) became the Median cats, those that had been convicted of theft or crime or were simply demanding more personal wealth became the gypsie like mouse merchants or warf rats. Artists and teachers often chose avian morphs, while techies adored clockwork synths. People with rare and in-demands skills became noble merchant houses choosing foxes, rabbits, or other attractive anamorphs. After so much work, when you finally approached the Scum in full character…they embraced you fully. The scum techs worked tirelessly recreating the renascence city, scum fixers meshed constantly trading now useless colony mining hab modules for upgraded engines or stellar fighters to keep the non-scum prates at bay. Incursions were regular occurrences, then the consortium filed charges of theft and mass murder and started offering huge bounties on your leaders. Merc infiltration teams became a daily occurrence… life became battle, and this was the environment you grew up in. As soon as xp recordings of cute animorphs, dapperly dressed, speaking Italian and fighting back against the forces of the consortium and the worst pirates, mercs, and bounty hunters in the solar system, you were on the receiving end of an overnight tidal wave of mesh popularity. Famous XP stars ego cast in to start hundreds of xp dramas, tourist visas were backed up for years, the renascence produced goods stamped with “made in Furrious Florence” logo skyrocketed in value. Extropians and uplifts praised you constantly. Everyone became a minor celebrity, and when you met the furry version of Mitzie Harcort as a young cat lass you became totally star struck. Vast sums were spent on armaments and constructing a new hyper elite resort center hab. Mostly weightless it merged pulpy 1950’s sci-fi to the furry fluff along with 0 G dance halls and auditoriums. The consortium reached an agreement with the hab leaders, and the bounties were ceased, along with the pirate attacks. You loved it, the hardcore mesh fans hated it, and a new grey alien xp overtook your high ratings. Hand produced goods prices plummeted, most of the tourist visas were canceled. The wave had passed by as quickly as it came on. Though still somewhat popular, times became hard again. The hab had managed to bribe off the consortium but was now in crushing debt over the failed resort. Many of the now experienced and well outfitted yet unnecessary security forces of the hab started renting their services out to the highest bidder. The ship became like any other on the scum flotilla, on one side an adult Disneyland of fantasy made real, on the other a popular stop for the seediest and most verted psycho criminals in the solar system. You had taken a few random jobs and ended up with a crew of furry mercs on Legba of all places awaiting payment for a job that you were more and more shure was never coming. You were tapped out and the shuttle needed repairs after your last drop, you were quickly loosing confidence in your employer, still you knew somebody with a rep like yours wouldent stay un employed long… that’s when you met Max… He hired you to do a number of easy, quick and very well paying jobs. He seemed to take a little too much joy in having his rivals killed in sadistic ways by cute animorphs, and he was ruthless in the extreme. Once Max used his expert infomorph hackers to wipe all back ups on a small anarch family drug manufacturing hab, then had you nuke it kids and all as an example to any who held out on consortium bribes… it worked.. a little too effectively. People started fearing the hell out of Koviasi’s Pets as you were called, you were starting to get antsy about the enemies you were making but the pay was great and never ever late. That’s when Koviasi said that your notoriety was starting to reach past the belt, which he couldent have, and he was arranging for a few last big jobs before he took off for wherever the consortium needed more back alley murder work done. First you raided an automated shipping transport that was being protected by a Direct Action escort (guys you thought Koviasi was in bed with), it was a little too easy to slip into firing range and overwhelm the escort. You broke into the transport, killed the understaffed security forces, hacked it’s AGI pilot, and had the thing diverted to a pirate asteroid hab. Everything about the job sent your wiskers twitching. A couple of weeks of non stop partying later, after your wiskers were too inebriated to twitch, Max met up with you back on the Furrious Florence. He had brought a transport that was filled to the brim with Direct Action military ordinance, and for the past two weeks had every morph customizer on the ship working on converting Furies to furry furies. They were jaw dropping amazing, sleeving one and hitting the neurochem was like your first orgazim, best birthday sex, and first flight in a stellar fighter all rolled in one. You were in love. Max told you to round up all your best most furry fanatical mercs, and tell em you were gonna pop their former leaders (who were rounded up in the bounty raids) from the penal mining colony they were being held at. If they survived the drop they could keep the Furies, if not they’d get a new one and 20k in creds to boot. Max was no political activist and you knew didn’t give a shit about anything but his killer rep. With anybody else you’d assume the deal was more worthless than old kitty litter, but with Max… you knew even if his motivations were BS the pay would be real. Gathering the 100 or so mercs was no problem, and next thing you know the transport was painted up like a direct action prison transport, all of you got direct action combat armor and weapons, and were on your way to a penal colony ran by the Ultimates on one of the moons above Eris and the discord Pandora gate. Max took you and your crew aside, He told you the prison was just the cover, that there was a hidden Exo-research facility under the prison in the ice mines, that when the shit hit the fan you were gonna go down there and steal some data he needed then rig it blow it up. He shook your hand, said its been a good run, and left with a finality that said you’d never see him again. You remember the first exchange with the Ultimates but after that things get blurry. You remember Max’s infomorph spooks didn’t shut down the panopticon, everything was being recorded. You made it down to the research facility, but they wernt researching exotech… it was TITAN tech and the exsurgent virus… you remember seeing flashes of alien planets and vistas while members of your crew screamed in alien languages. When you looked back at them wire like circuitry ripped through their morphs creating itself while their brains leaked out like boiling tapioca pudding, you knew right then you’d have nightmares about this for the rest of your life. The transport was blown up but some how you and a few others stole some Ultimates fighters and made it off the moon… Mesh reports were already coming in about a failed attempt by the furs to rescue their leaders and a huge Direct Action/Consortium/Ultimates bounty being levied on anybody involved. That was when the Direct Action assault ship waiting near by came out of hiding and killed everyone but you… your cats luck had paid off again, though your ship was nearly destroyed, you managed to shut down the power and jettison the makeshift cyropod before they realized you were in it. You set the distress beacon to go off in two years figuring if you got hit by an asteroid, or killed when the cryo failed you’d wake up in a new morph back on Florence, if you didn’t die and got picked up you’d have enough time behind ya to make a new start… and that’s pretty much what happened… pretty much… When you wake up your in a medical bay being treated by a maxim model disguising herself as a trauma nurse, “Oh, did kitty wakie wakie from its lil kitty cat nap?” she says in southern drawl. “don’t try n move too much wiskers, you’ve been under a long time and Furie or not you’ve got some serious sleep sickness going on, Doc’s gonna come in in a few with a shot your really gonna like.”

—

Sun, 2013-09-08 04:00

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

next, a horny toad expeirmental uplift, who was also a surf bum

says it all really... Need to combine super rare, likely illegal and expensive uplift with beach bum surfer… A hypercorp dome on mars is set up to be a large ultra elite, ultra secure/secrete retreat. It looks like the spring fed waterfalls of red rock Arizona leading to a martian red sand beach environment, they uplifted horny toads to provide bodyguard-security services/and act as repairmen and servants while being entertaining. Jamaican musicians, comical surf instructors, pompus personal servants, funny clumsy waiters etc. other uplifts were also desired, fat baby elephants that played in the water, dolphinmen who were lifeguards and also signal scramblers… Dr Matuma Ghrae, a zenobiologist (who for some time worked for Go-Nin corp analyzing Pandora gate biological samples) , evolutionary biologist, genetics composer, and uplift psychosurgeon; The scientist who created the predation-reclamation-offensive immunology subroutines of the XXXXX habitat (it’s a living habitat where the walls breathe and pump coolant/lubricant/sealant as blood etc), was “acquired” to create the security, maintenance, and entertainment uplifts the xxxx corporation wanted. It was a very controlled corporate uplift process eliminating most independent thoughts and all real reptilian instincts, and often forcing re-enacted pre-programmed comedic, security sweep, or cleaning/repair routines. (As for abilities, you can pick a lot… enhanced dex, stealth, blood you can squirt from your eyes contains a knockout nanochem for security/drunk control? Im thinking they give you a biomorph that lets you basically turn invis (so you could patrol or perform duties without being seen by guests/foes) and maybe a touch of enhanced charisma, enhanced articulation, and running/climbing/leaping/senses (forked tongue flicks and tastes air.) Maybe a holo projector/sound effects cyber to enhance the entertainment/confuse foes? Unbeliveium claws/teeth that pop out? Suction hands to stick to walls? Maybe a little psychic? All kinds of possibilities. ) An uplift rights advocate Hairy “Sugarcane” Simian (a uplift orangutan) and his group infiltrated the hab in human morphs, and snuck in a portable black market psycho surgery machine in a casemorph assistant. They started an irreversible nanite fueled uplifting of you and a number of your brothers and sisters, as well as a few dolphins, he promises to return and leaves but gunfire is heard in the night just ouside the dome. Then strange behaviors began, emotional responses began. Preferences, independent personalities and relationships formed. One of your routines was a beach side romantic comedy musical where your petal headed friends (Fredyz, Andyez, and Charliez) egged you on to get over your fear and ask out “Gidgitz” a female (who had also undergone the rapid uplifting) learning to surf. Not understanding what was happening you actually fell in love with Gidgetz, both broke from the routine and hid in a shed for days. Ghrae was unavailable, the retreat was placed on lockdown, guests became very nervous and afraid. Some of the uplifted reacted to the growing mammal fear stink, long lost instincts and reptile mannerisms were suddenly reignited…. Psychotic breaks and violent outbursts followed. Ghrae arrived in the aftermath. All of you were rounded up by corporate casemorph samurai clean up teams, overkill to your bio weapons and who see right through the cammo (or whatever you choose). Ghrae urgently began analysis, becoming more and more upset as extended surgeries, implants, and attempt after attempt to wipe consciousness and return to previous neural hard lined programming failed in those that underwent the Simian’s alteration. This flash back still haunts you, Gidgitz is on the medical table opposite you, your lying on your stomach paralyzed but can still feel think and see, your faces turned toward each other, by random chance. You see the wires leading to the cortical stack exposed with her spine. The doctor seems intrigued my something on the stack itself. He reaches into her, her eyes fill with tears as he rips the stack out just before they go dead. The doctor’s eyes are lost in glee as he cleans the stack. A well dressed man comes in, but at the angle you cant see his face.”media outlets across the solar system are showing footage, a government inspection team is on the way ETA fifteen minuets.” The doctor says “I found what I needed, have someone burn these, and don’t worry about the added compensation, this is enough considering everything.” The man says “burn these two?” Doc says “No, all of them.” “Even the ones stll alive?” the man asks, “I SAID ALL OF THEM!” is the answer. You and the other paralyzed toads are thrown into a laundry cart. You can feel the heat of the incinerator as your rolled into the room, three silenced shots zip out from the corner of the room, a body falls. Somebody checks you, “good, most of you are still alive… these mad scientists are nothing if not predictable.” It’s the voice of the man who introduced himself as Hairy, “I got a way out of here, but I don’t have time to fix you or explain, your going to be really happy in a few moments try and enjoy it.” Your sent into a stimlife game, it’s an eden like planet filled with uplifts and no transhumans, Gidgitz and all your friends are there, you spend years just traveling the globe surfing, doing extreme sports, you have a lot of nagging suspicions something is terribly horribly wrong but you don’t care, you’ve got a cottage on an australian like beach, you surf and fish the reef, the petal heads are always nearby for fun and friendship, you love every day, and Gidg is pregnant your first child… You wake from the lie. Your in some kind of tank, your lifted out, Simian is not there. Your high on some kind of tranq. The techie has no answers for you, even in your drug haze you demand to be put back in the lie but he cant or wont and instead gives you a stimlife chip telling you you can use it on other stimlife terminals but warns your probabily already strongly addicted and shouldn’t use it again. It’s the best he can do. You get some foul tasting food and he hands you a package. Its data slate with a ton of news reports on it, the techie tells you you’ve been in hotsleep for about four years and it will take a few weeks and a lot of virtual therapy to get you back in shape and in a somewhat healthy state of mind, the good news being you’ve been mostly forgotten about and assumed deceised. You Read through the reports, First stim starts to play, Simian is there in his orang body, he tells you how for a few days (an eternity in solar news mesh) once the actual recorded footage of your plight hit the air, you and Gidgitz became instant poster children for the uplift rights community. In the background you see almost a movie of the beach scene, your time in the shack, her death, the doctor’s glee and his final order. Even with the psychosurgic emotional dampening, your feeling an acute sense of loss and rage. Hairy tells you hes truly sorry he could not save you all earlier, as was his plan. His “men” were taken out and his inside agent was discovered, only he, a dolphin hybrid, six sisters and four brothers of yours survived, and only three of each of those survived the standard uplifting procieedures, and two of those are exhibiting signs of severe mental disturbance, paranoia and psychois. Another stim talks about the multi million cred trial going on. The Go-Nin corporation and Dr. Ghrae are asserting yoiur not really uplifts as most of your bodies are synthetic and you really had no sense of cognizance or free will till you programs were sabatauged by the uplift terrorists. Then theres the scene with Freddyz, still wearing his Ire jamacan took and fake dreadlocks. a child is screaming from behind a rock fornmation/pump room. A transhuman guest runs around the corner, behind some bushes a horny toad head is seen ripping meat and gulping it down, Its Freddyz, the transhuman grabs a pole and Freddyz leaps on him, his last view is of the blood covered lizard scrambling over the rock dragging the still screaming child in his maw with most of the flesh tattered or ripped off his “bent the wrong way” leg. Simian says “this really hurt our case, all the blame in the world couldent wipe away those images. Needless to say its going to be decades before this one is fully decided. our attorneys tell us we got a good chance though. But none of that protected Ghrae..” Next report is of Ghrae denying charges of inhuman crimes against transhumanity, denying the charges then being arrested then released awaiting trial, then another headline of his corporate accounts being cleared out, all stored backups deleted, and his seemingly complete disappearance. “I’d be willing to bet the hypercorps offed him not wanting to take the chance of him turning, they don’t like loose ends or constant reminders of their exposed weaknesses… speaking of, a new uplift rights organization popped up. Their offering you 100k in creds to tell your story, 5,000 creds to any information leading to a face to face interview. Found out at least one person working for them is a paid informant to XXXXXX a not so secretive anti-uplift militant hate group, bit of easy hacking showed a huge series of donations beginning just before the trial, and a few weeks ago a big expenditure, enough to cover multiple extended professional operations with crackerjack intel. With this info most of your remaining siblings chose to go underground in common human biomorphs, a few simply fled, the ones who do wish to remain in contact have a means of contacting you when and if their ready, against my best advice. Simian continues… You have some choices to make, we could outfit or set you up in just about any place you wanted or there’s another option… there’s this organization called Firewall, they stop very bad things from happening, the sort of bad things that are so scary bad nobody ever heard about a risk in the first place. They are very well funded, they were interested in you and if you performed well im sure you’d have some very capable and dependable friends in no time. Anyway, you have a few days to think about it, tell the tech guy when your ready. Good luck, hopefully we’ll meet again some day, and for once I wont be the only one doing all the damn talking. character note: As for abilities, you can pick a lot… enhanced dex, stealth, blood you can squirt from your eyes contains a knockout nanochem for security/drunk control? Im thinking they give you a biomorph that lets you basically turn invis (so you could patrol or perform duties without being seen by guests/foes) and maybe a touch of enhanced charisma, enhanced articulation, and running/climbing/leaping/senses (forked tongue flicks and tastes air, chemical analsis?.) Maybe a holo projector/sound effects cyber to enhance the entertainment/confuse foes? Unbeliveium claws/teeth that pop out? Suction hands to stick to walls? All kinds of possibilities. BTW I was seeing you as somewhat pixar or dwarf sized, but what did you have in mind? One thing though, I do NOT want this to become a farce campaign. Like deciding to play call of cuthulu and one guy shows up dressed as a clown with a live chicken on his head… kind of kills it. Your character is a fully capable, super cool futuristic reptilian super secrete agent who works for Firewall, the clandestine organization who stops existential threats IE dangers that could end all transhuman existence. There will be plenty of times to goof off and blow off steam but a lot of time, (IE most of the time,) I’ll be trying to build on nail biting suspense, and deep moral themes and I don’t want the goofy guy being ridiculous every time I do. A little light heartedness and moments of comedy relief will be greatly appreciated, but please don’t create the character to be just a joke character. I was thinking when I wrote this… if all he wanted to do is surf and act like a pixar character… why is he fighting scary TITANs, creepy cults, hypercorps and 9 lifers? Where does the characters motivation come from to do those things? Anyhoo tell me what ya think, what ya want changed…. Protection against predation[edit source | edit]Horned lizards use a wide variety of means to avoid predation. Their coloration generally serves as camouflage. When threatened, their first defense is to remain still to avoid detection. If approached too closely, they generally run in short bursts and stop abruptly to confuse the predator's visual acuity. If this fails, they puff up their bodies to cause them to appear more horned and larger, so more difficult to swallow. At least four species are also able to squirt an aimed stream of blood from the corners of the eyes for a distance of up to five feet.[1][2][3] They do this by restricting the blood flow leaving the head, thereby increasing blood pressure and rupturing tiny vessels around the eyelids. This not only confuses predators, but also the blood tastes foul to canine and feline predators. It appears to have no effect against predatory birds. To avoid being picked up by the head or neck, a horned lizard ducks or elevates its head and orients its cranial horns straight up, or back. If a predator tries to take it by the body, the lizard drives that side of its body down into the ground so the predator cannot easily get its lower jaw underneath the lizard

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Sun, 2013-09-08 04:03

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

Lastly... the Octomorph Argonaut synthmorph specialist

Hows this for fucked up backgroundery… You were a born octomorph (your parents paid for the expensive reproductive biomod) living on an anarch flotilla, there was a series of grizzily murders of entire uplift families, a group of anti uplift terrorists were suspected others said TITANs, most suspected a single large remade. Possibly an ultamate. You came home one day from the public tank, and your parents were dead, you could taste the killer’s sent, his fear/arousal and elation. Then things then got much worse, their back ups had been deleted just prior to the murder in a netwar assulalt by corporate hacker crews. Your father, totally unprepaired and mostly broke had a basic insurance policy that ran out six months later, you were forced to upgrade to adult stastus and seek work. Only a few years old, with no skills and no patron you were forced into the seedy world of cross species sex work. An agency loaned you the money for an expensive sexually adaptive morph. You hated it, but it wasn’t long before you met Karen Itatsu… Karen was over 80 years old but often she wore a child morph, she was the daughter of a mid ranking japanise execuitive, they had had a bad falling out and Karen had left the corporation and her father to create custom animorphs, and smart pet modifications for the rebellious baka gajin of the flotilla. She had altered her personality to become a wonder filled 12 yr old named Keiko. When free of work or research, Keiko loved frogs, insects, lizards, snails and especially octopi. At times she paid you to be a playmate other times when her mood grew darker and more adult, a lover. Karen discovered you had a highly analytic mind and enjoyed your eagerness to understand all aspects of science while Keiko loved your childlike boundless creativity. You became very selective about your clients mostly just passing time as you waited for Karen’s call or weekly appointment. All was well and good, that is until the new man came. He asked for you specifically through the agency. A handsome gentleman in an expensive, custom biomorph offering three times your regular rate if you could meet that evening. Well dressed, well groomed, wearing a strong colone and wishing only to ne addressed as Mr. Newman. What the other workers didn’t tell you was ‘The New Man” as they called him only enjoyed debasing the uplifts, flew into rages at the slightest cause, and would become so brutal and sadistic most feared for their lives… You died, your body and stack unrecovered, the agency assumed you had fled and the insurance would not cover resleeving or a new morph. Your conciousness was to be sent to the databanks as an infugee awaiting a new morph and likely brain wiped loyalty condioned eternal corporate servitude in a cheap plastic case should you ever be lucky enough to be chosen... Karen saved you, as an infomorph the affairs ended except in XP (where you both created your invader world), and she became your teacher, your new mother, and as Keiko your best friend. She sponsored you and got you admitted to an Argonaut managed science academy years early. Very rapidly she cut back on her contact with you, and very much like a japanise mother saying you had to focus your mind on your studies and not mess around with childrens pastimes. Soon the calls stopped all together, you had Xercies an uplift friend check on her from time to time, she still lived at the apartment but had quit working, about a month before your graduation Xercies called and said she had moved away. K that’s it fo now more later… Keiko/Karen is gone gone, you started to investigate, found out there were a number of direct action mercs who started snooping around just after you got to the academy, you managed to get some info about the merc leader but before you could investigate more, you got an absolutely huge job offer to work on analyzing exotech with an Argonauts team that could lead to gate crashing and exoploration opertunities, the problem being you'd need to move to a super secure research facility for the next two years. you did it, you even got to go on a few gatecrashing missions but there was some kind of huge problem... ill have to think it up (possibly you don't even know, the problem was so bad you and everyone at the facility had some kind of memory wipe) and the facility was shut down. Since then you haven't been able to secure work doing any kind of exo research (those jobs are super duper rare and you think you may have been semi blacklisted) so when the offer came in to work with firewall, and they told you it it would likely eventually lead to exotech and gatecrashing you jumped at the chance. your secrete knowledge... and DO NOT share this... every member of the team has at some point been infected with not just one but two forms of the exsurgent virus. the first version is the standard macleod strain (the one that causes async psi powes) the second strain as best they can tell wraps around the first, acts as some form of psi catalyst and seems to facilitate forced consciousness transfer IE body jumping without uploading machines, IE. possession. Can you see why the Argos are willing to bend every rule to have access to this? and why this would NEVER be open sourced? the danger involved is immense. you know the second strain was found on a damaged ultimate stack that came from earth, they expiremented with it (and the ultimate who carried it) for five years, The ultimate himself has no idea he was the subject of a forced transfer or the five years of expirementation. They did find out how to transfer the virus from person to person (the psi amplification does work, minorly now with extra insanity!) but not how to make the consciousness transfer work. essentially, your the control in the expirement. you don't have the virus and you can monitor the ones that do. you also know the firewall support team is well aware of whats going on but your not allowed to discuss any aspect of this with them. the only members of the support team you will have contact with is Agnes the psychosurgeon, and Jessie the super hot med tech who will be giving you medical data on the team itself, the only time your permitted to discuss the virus with them is if it mutates in some way that is potentially dangerous. also, though the team will be going on missions you cant let a body fall into the hands of anyone else, cant just pull the stack and leave the meat behind either you burn it or bring it. your also there to make sure no member of the team flees firewall, if you have any suspicion they might you must confir it to the captian and Argos. What you really don't understand is why these infected people are not locked away in some deep dank facility, firewall is supposed to protect the world from existential threats not create more of them. the response to that is "need to know, you'll find out later" so 1) what happened to Karen? 2) how do you get vengeance on newman and who was he? 3) who killed your parents and why? 4) what happened at the facility you worked at? 5) whats the real purpose of this firewall team? 6) how do you get killer smart kittens to play with twine and look cute for the camera?

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Sun, 2013-09-08 04:07

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

well, if you read all the way through this pulpy tripe....

let me know what ya think, hope it gives you some ideas for your own campaign... and can you see where the loose strings of the character's backgrounds are eventually going to come together...?

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Sun, 2013-09-08 10:22

thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture

Interesting, diverges from

Interesting, diverges from the setting a bit (uplifts dongt have enough rights in consortium space for the toad incident to go to trial, but it would be a PR nightmare. There is no way an orphaned child (of any sapient species) on an anarch flotilla would have to sell himself into prostitution to survive (what would he get, they don’t even have money). I am assuming you already have a reason why firewall is letting these guys out. Normaly WM strain is not infectious after the first couple of days but if they want the bodies destroyed they evedantly think the other strain is. Young to be a problem when they get in a fight and leave an infectious blood trail. Or just get lucky. On the whole however very good setup

Mon, 2013-09-09 00:09

Baalbamoth Baalbamoth's picture

still struggling with the setting...

I figured the trial was more about what the corp did that was illegal, namely illegal psychosurgery and experimentation, putting experimental non-approved uplifts within a human population etc. and firewall... that's the big secrete... they're not really a firewall team, they've just been convinced that's who their working for...

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