Modified human; Sagittarian Hegemony special forces, the so called 'homo vexillatio' (colloquially; 'standard bearers') are subtly different from baseline humanity; the bone structure is altered and therefore the muscle groupings are changed to reflect that. Denser muscle keeps them trim and slender. There are other changes to the endocrine and nervous systems; vexillarii do exceed the human norms for physical ability, but their key advantage lies in their ability to bring more of their body's functions under conscious control, a subtle advantage. A particular downside is that not all medication works on him as effectively as a baseline human. Tailored drugs are expensive and he is now on his own.

Sulla wears his hair shaggy on the top and gathered into a topknot, but with shaved sides and a bit of a beard, which is a departure from the styles of the Hegemony. His skin tone is olive and he's gone ahead and gotten tattoo work during his time as a mercenary. It's hard to tell he is modified without taking a long look at his body, arms and legs for example, though movement also tends to give them away at a full tilt run.

Project Vexillarius was an ambitious project by the Hegemon to create a praetorian guard of enhanced soldiers to defend his own family from outside threats as well as to consolidate his rule over the Hegemony; a single planet, but rich and highly industrialized. The program was a success; the soldiers it created were instrumental in rooting out dissent and swiftly establishing the regime's control over an unruly military and society -- it prevented generals from thinking they were the bulwark of the Hegemon's power. Fast, strong, intelligent and raised to be ruthless, the vexillarii acquired a fearsome reputation for rooting out coup plots and internal dissent.

And then the Hegemon's own son, Septimius, was modified using the gene-template of the vexillarii; he was one of them, something that put his much older brother and heir presumptive, Claudius, on guard.

While Hegemon Lucius ruled, the vexillarii were content to serve, though they were led by Septimius as he came of age, and around this time, the old Hegemon's health began to fail. There was speculation that Claudius might be displaced as heir, as Septimius was as much superman as the ones who guarded the old Hegemon into his old age; the old man's militaristic bias was such that he favored the warrior son, and the more bureaucratic Claudius was not as pleasing.

That, of course, created fears among the umodified of a takeover and what resulted was a purge, assisted by S9 tech; combat robots, relentless and in enough numbers to swamp the vexillarii at the Hegemon's Palace. Quantity overpowered quality, assisted by the heavy artillery of Claudius' conventional army supporters. Sulla wasn't there or he would have died. He was engaged in an espionage operation when the others, unmodified intel types, turned on him. He barely got away, wounded, stranded and without resources. By the time he managed to recover from wounds that probably would have done in a normal person, it was all over -- Septimius was dead and so were most of the vexillarii.

Lacking much in the way of resources, he managed to sign a two-year contract with a mercenary outfit, Loki Inc. headed by Jalil Darke. It was mostly corporate work, but corporate work in space often meant putting down violent revolts and repossessing assets on behalf of clients -- for example, if the client sold weaponry to some pirates and those pirates didn't pay on time -- and Sulla came away with some funding that would allow him to freelance. Somewhere down the line, Winston Valos made contact with an offer; Sulla accepted. He didn't like being on salary and a cut of the profits sounded much more lucrative.

Vexillarii tend toward the lighter scale of armor and weaponry, partially because they are tougher, but also because armored exoskeletons seem less comfortable and organic -- the ones optimized for baseline humanity, for example, add strength but take away maneuverability and the vexillari tend to prefer to go without exoskeletons that interfere with their own finely tuned sense of balance and movement. Vexillarii often come off as lightly armed and less of a threat on the battlefield full of big, obvious uglies like the Trozinkins or S9's combat model robots, which is a deception they use to their advantage against foes that are not familiar with them. They function best as light infantry.

-Janus Industries model 212 pistol; large caliber, single action, damned reliable gun. Slightly less rounds than many comparable handguns, but all steel and shoots comfortably.
-Hauptmann S68 carbine, w/ optics and pseudomusculature-assisted recoil control. Bullpup rifle. He typically loads jacketed rounds and three tracers at the bottom of the magazine to let him know that he's running dry.
-Solarium sunglasses (tres chic, wired with datadisplays.)
-Juurun Orbital Syndicate DH2212A3 - Holo-screen datapad, hardened military model intended to take EMP and rough use.
-Forged alloy combat knife, custom job with a tanto point, low profile concealment system sheath, 5 1/2" blade. Surprisingly durable and he has the muscle to drive it through the inevitable thin spots that appear in armor.
-Light alloy mesh skinsuit with some armor plating, some vacuum resistance. This is far from the heaviest armor out there. Sulla rolls fairly light.
-Grenades tend to be a mix of EMP and conventional, and he has a fondness for conversion kits that allow him to turn the grenades into command-detonated or motion-sensing mines.
-Monomolecular wire - a nasty favorite trap, especially for anyone in an open-topped vehicle or with sufficient momentum to cut their own heads off in a charge, when strung across a corridor.
-Medical kit; stuff tailored to his physiology and in a computerized unit that does diagnostics; it's plugged into his suit and thence to the datapad on his arm and his HUD. This is an expensive piece of tech, mostly because the software had to be programmed to his physiology by a specialist and he had to pay for tailored drugs that can auto-inject if he is incapacitated. He is durable, but he already had a brush with death.